Tanizaki Jun'ichiro

Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965) was a Japanese writer, novelist and essayist. He is known for innovative writing and was a leading writer of Meiji era (before 1912).

Wisdom & Quotes

• Some of today's writers - or, I should say, the great majority of them - are inclined to shun tales that present imaginings, labeling them all as 'fabrications'. Yet has there been any poet or man of letters, ancient or modern, who did not make free use of his imaginations? Would a writer, even a naturalistic writer, be able to present truth if he were lacking in imagination? ... The artist justifies his existence only when he can transform his imagination into truth.
• I believe that art is the only way by which an evil man can attain a realm of perfect liberation without becoming an entirely different person. While religion spurns evil men ... art permits them to enter its realm, as long as they believe in it.
• Evil is only of this world. In the other world there is neither good nor evil; all there is, is beauty.
• The artist's imagination may wander far from nature. But as long as it is a living, moving power in his brain, isn't it just as real as any other natural phenomenon? The artist justifies his existence only when he can transform his imagination into truth.

David Shimoni