Wind and Stone (Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature)

Mizue is a Japanese housewife. Kase is a garden designer hired by her husband to landscape their home. As the garden takes shape, Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire. A disturbing tale of seduction, based on Japanese aesthetics and the artistic pursuit of destructive beauty.

The story of Mizue, a Japanese housewife, and Kase, a traditional-style garden designer hired by her husband to landscape their home. As the garden takes shape, Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire, and her carefully structured home life begins to crumble. Author Masaaki Tachihara explores the psychology of human passion in an oblique language filled with references to Japanese garden art and aesthetic values. A disturbing and alluring work.

Author Biography: Masaaki Tachihara (1926-80) was born the son of a Zen priest in Taegu, Korea, and grew up studying the arts of medieval Japan, especially literature and the Noh theater. He was awarded the Naoki Prize for Fiction in 1961.; Stephen Kohl is Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Oregon and a specialist in modern Japanese literature. He has translated numerous works of fiction.

Stone Bridge Press is a leading English-language publisher of Japanese literature in translation. Our ROCK SPRING COLLECTION OF JAPANESE LITERATURE features absorbing and important translations of classical and contemporary Japanese fiction and poetry. We believe that literature is a window into culture and society, and an expression of what is most peculiarly, and universally, human.

In detailing the affair between a garden designer and his client's wife, this Japanese novel explores the roots of passion.