Winner, 2025-2026 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia UniversityIn the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy.
Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist’s quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters—culminating in a total solar eclipse—strikes the village, with profound consequences. Keiichiro Hirano’s Eclipse was a meteoric literary sensation when it first appeared in 1998.
Its author, still an undergraduate, was hailed as a prodigy; the book received Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and became a bestseller. Set on the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, Eclipse depicts a society that is on the surface vastly different from modern-day Japan.
Yet its account of a challenge to dualistic binaries and ossified worldviews holds striking contemporary resonance and philosophical depth. Taking the form of a memoir, Eclipse brings together an evocative portrayal of its historical setting, including the lore of medieval alchemy, with a rich literary lexicon, lush imagery, and psychological intricacy.
This vivid translation offers Anglophone readers a vital work by one of Japan’s most distinctive voices.
| Format |
Häftad |
| Omfång |
152 sidor |
| Språk |
Engelska |
| Förlag |
Columbia University Press |
| Utgivningsdatum |
2024-11-12 |
| ISBN |
9780231214919 |
