内容紹介
ノーベル賞作家・川端康成氏による、京都とその四季の行事を舞台とした双子姉妹の物語。 双子に生まれながらもまるで違う境遇で育ってきた千重子と苗子は、祭りで出会ったのをきっかけに親交を深めるようになる。移ろいゆく四季の中、古都の美しさと趣深さを存分に描き、揺れうごく姉妹の心情がいまにも壊れそうな繊細な筆致で綴られている。
The Old Capital is one of the three works for which Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Set in Kyoto- the old capital of Japan for a thousand years- this lyric novel traces the life of Chieko, the beloved adopted daughter of a kimono designer and his wife. Believing that she had been kidnapped by the couple as a baby, Chieko learns one day that she was instead a foundling, left abandoned on a doorstep. Happy with her adopted parents, however, her security and contentment remain undisturbed until an answered prayer at the famous Yasaka Shrine dramatically alters the course of her life.
著者について
Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) was born in Osaka, the son of a wealthy and prominent physician, but was raised in the country by his grandfather after his parents’ early deaths. As a youth he seemed destined to be a painter, and his rich visualization formed the heart of his writing. After his graduation from Tokyo Imperial University in 1924, he quickly went to the forefront of modern Japanese writing and after the war built an immense international literary reputation, capped in 1968 with the Nobel Prize in literature. He died by his own hand.