The Maids

About

Tanizaki's final novel, discovered and published posthumously — a work written in the last years of his life about an aging author and the young maids who attend him. The old man's world has narrowed to his household, his appetites, and his fascination with the women who orbit him with the practiced patience of professionals managing a difficult charge. Jun'ichiro Tanizaki spent his career exploring the dynamics of desire and submission, and this last work distills those obsessions to their essence: an old man, young women, and the power that flows in both directions between need and service. A final, intimate work from one of Japan's greatest novelists — written at the edge of life, about the pleasures and humiliations of being cared for.