In Black and White

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s novel In Black and White was published in 1928. The protagonist Mizuno, a writer, is selfish, immoral, and lazy, but for his talent, he is forgiven for his debts, late manuscripts, lies, and even a complete lack of compassion for people. The novel does not have a clear plot and leaves some mysteries unsolved, but it provides an extremely interesting insight into the psychology of a creative person, revealing what writers write and why. The novel contains elements of satire on the literary community, a parody of egofiction, which was fashionable in Japan at the time, and an echo of the author’s literary polemics with his personal friend and bitter literary rival, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.