Memoir of Forgetting the Capital by 谷崎潤一郎 and translated by Amy Heinrich

This is poetry from Japan.

Memoir of Forgetting the Capital by 谷崎潤一郎 translated by Amy Heinrich is published by Columbia University Press. This is a Book originally written in Japanese. This was published in 2011.0 and has the ISBN of 9.784841905472E12.

Memoir of Forgetting the Capital, by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and translated by Amy Heinrich, sits at an interesting edge of the poetry library because Tanizaki is best known as a major Japanese prose writer. The title suggests memory and erasure, city and departure, cultural center and personal dislocation. Heinrich’s translation gives English readers access to a work that may matter as lyric prose, literary reflection, or a historically attentive text rather than a conventional poetry collection. I would read it for the tension between memoir and forgetting. A memoir usually promises recovery, but this title promises loss, or at least the failure of memory to obey. The capital may be a place, a symbol, or an organizing principle the self can no longer keep intact.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.