The Gossamer Years

"Kagero Nikki," translated here as "The Gossamer Years," belongs to the same period as the celebrated "Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikuibu. This remarkably frank autobiographical diary and personal confession attempts to describe a difficult relationship as it reveals two tempestuous decades of the author's unhappy marriage and her growing indignation at rival wives and mistresses. Too impetuous to be satisfied as a subsidiary wife, this beautiful (and unnamed) noblewoman of the Heian... Voir plus