SOURCE: 'Tanizaki Junichirō's Historical Fiction," in Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 8, No. 1, November, 1972, pp. 34-44.

An American educator and critic, Chambers is considered an expert on the work of Tanizaki. In the following excerpt, he determines the influence of Japanese history and culture on Tanizaki's short fiction.

It is clear that in his early years Tanizaki Junichirō was strongly attracted to the West, that he adopted Western dress, lived in Western-style buildings and associated with foreigners in Yokohama. He was also intrigued by China: following a trip to China in 1919 he surrounded himself with Chinese bric-a-brac and posed for photographs in Chinese costume. He was also taken by the exoticism of Kyoto and Osaka; for Tanizaki, born and reared in Tokyo, a trip to Kansai was almost like a trip to a foreign land. Always drawn to the exotic, he seems not to...