Fair Dalliance

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke was a sensual writer, whose style is reminiscent of that of novelists such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Nagai Kafu. His works deal with the possibility of emotional purity in the relationships between men and women. Often, the relationship is examined through the agency of the protagonist's association with prostitutes. This collection brings together a selection of many of his finest stories, examining human relationships to reveal new aspects of ourselves. In the preface to New Writing in Japan, Mishima Yukio says of Yoshiyuki: "The delicacy of Yoshiyuki's language and sensibility is probably more subtle and sophisticated than that of any Japanese writer since the war...The idee fixe of Japanese youth today--that love is impossible and impracticable--lies deep at the root of Yoshiyuki's thinking." His elegant prose style is often likened to that of Albert Camus. Howard Hibbett said of Yoshiyuki (in Contemporary Japanese Literature: an Anthology of Fiction, Film and Other Writing Since 1945): "The cool, polished surface of his fiction faithfully reflects a world of mingled frivolity and futility...The urbane refinement of his astringent prose style is much admired."