From the publisher: "In 1994 Goldin and Araki decided to collaborate on a project about adolescents in Tokyo. They set out to capture the joys, thrills, and anxieties of youth. The two photographers, each of them in their very own way obsessed by love and eroticism, complemented one another perfectly. Together, they forged a panoramic vision of love and sexuality in all its varieties. Nobuyoshi Araki took pictures of young girls in his studio capturing both their budding awareness of the female body and its seductiveness and, on the other hand, their insecurity and anxiety. His portraits precisely pinpoint the frightening and exhilarating transition from girl to woman. Nan Goldin explored Tokyo's queer underground-gay boys, transvestites, fetishists, and all those who defy society's preordained definitions of sexuality. She celebrates their courage and beauty, their fight for their right to love.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. The plays included in the volume—three of the most popular domestic dramas and one history play—provide a representative selection of Chikamatsu’s work for Western readers. In his introduction to the translations, Dr. Keene provides the reader with the background essential for an understanding of Chikamatsu’s work. He discusses customs and beliefs in Chikamatsu’s time, their reflection in the behavior ofhis characters, and the essential features of Japanese drama as they developed entirely independently of foreign influence. The four plays included in the book “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki”“The Battles of Coxinga”“The Uprooted Pine”“The Love Suicides at Amijima”

At the turn of the century, a blizzard maroons guests in a mountain inn in Japan. They are an odd lot and include a theater troupe. There is robbery, murder and love. The protagonist is the innkeeper's apprentice. A first novel.