Black white

The novel "Black and White" by Junichirō Tanizaki was published in 1928. The main character, the writer Mizuno, is selfish, immoral and lazy, but for his talent he is forgiven for his debts, missed deadlines, lies and even a complete lack of compassion for people. The novel does not have a clear plot and leaves some mysteries unsolved, but instead provides an extremely interesting cross-section of the psychology of a creative person, showing what and why writers write. The novel contains elements of satire on the literary community, a parody of the ego-fiction that was fashionable in Japan at the time, and an echo of the author's literary polemic with his personal friend and bitter literary rival Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.