The Key

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki · 1886–1965 · Japan

Originally Kagi (Japanese) · translated by Howard Hibbett

Why it matters

A husband and wife, each suspecting the other reads their private diary, begin performing desire for an audience of one. Tanizaki's most formally daring novel: two unreliable confessions locked together like a cipher.

At a glance

Dual, dueling diary narrators whose unreliability must be triangulated by the reader.