Junichiro Tanizaki

"The Makioka Sisters" (Sasameyuki) is a multigenerational portrait of a once-prosperous Osaka merchant family navigating tradition and change in the years leading up to World War II. The novel was partially censored by wartime Japanese authorities for lacking patriotic sentiment, and was published in full after the war.

"In Praise of Shadows" (1933) is an influential essay contrasting traditional Japanese aesthetics—which value subtlety, patina, and the play of shadow—with the bright, utilitarian aesthetic imported from the West. The essay remains a foundational text in discussions of Japanese design and cultural identity.

Notable works include "Naomi" (1924), which satirizes Western cultural obsession; "The Key" (1956), a diary-format novel about a married couple's sexual manipulation of each other; and "Diary of a Mad Old Man" (1962). His fiction frequently explores eroticism, obsession, and the clash between traditional and modern Japan.

Tanizaki was reportedly a strong contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the early 1960s but died in 1965 before he could receive it. The Nobel Prize was awarded to fellow Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata in 1968.