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The Rainbow

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The Rainbow

Written by: Yasunari Kawabata, Haydn Trowell - translator
Narrated by: Ami Okumura Jones
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two sisters - born to the same father but different mothers - struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age. Asako, the younger, has become obsessed with locating a third sibling, while also experiencing love for the first time. While Momoko, their father's first child - haunted by the loss of her kamikaze boyfriend and their final, disturbing days together - seeks comfort in a series of unhealthy romances. And both sisters find themselves unable to outrun the legacies of their late mothers. A thoughtful, probing novel about the enduring traumas of war, the unbreakable bonds of family and the inescapability of the past, The Rainbow is a searing, melancholy work from one of Japan's greatest writers.

©2023 Yasunari Kawabata (P)2023 Penguin Audio

 Classics Coming of Age Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature

Critic Reviews

This elegant classic by a Nobel laureate portrays a more passionate side of post-war Kyoto … From maple leave against a wide blue sky to black camellias standing in a bamboo vase, Kawabata’s prose gives pride of place to fleeting moments of natural beauty … at once a well-told story and a loving portrait of a family in transition (Christopher Harding)
This fine novel is full of surprises.. [Kawabata] was a minimalist, whose work embraces minimalism’s hopeful assumption that, in the right hands, a string of minute details—a phrase, an unspoken gesture, a linking of gazes—may unlock a multitude of meanings. Look closely, listen carefully, is the first tacit message of Kawabata’s novels. The second is, Let my story burrow inward. There is more here than meets the eye and ear (Brad Leithauser)
In this masterpiece Kawabata, his brush dipped in silver, renders all the excruciating anguish and beauty of post-war Japan (Edmund White)
It is impossible to understand the soul of Japan without reading Yasunari Kawabata. Snow Country is his greatest hit, a beautiful novel that both reflected and shaped Japanese culture, but The Rainbow - translated into English for the first time - is Kawabata's missing classic. The Rainbow is where modern Japan begins - a nation born again in the shadow of the nuclear mushroom cloud, and in its bitter-sweet tale of two sisters is also the story of a nation struggling to find a way to live in the rubble and ruins. As always with Japan's greatest novelist, his themes - the bonds of family, wounds that will never heal , love that endures and loser boyfriends - are painfully universal. A book for anyone who loves Japan, or great story-telling, or both. Dazzling, brilliant, unmissable. (Tony Parsons)
Kawabata's novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time
Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible
All stars
Most relevant
Yasunari Kawabata masterfully weaves themes of love, loss, and beauty throughout his writing. This book is a shining example of his artistry, echoing the elegance found in his celebrated novels Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Old Capital, which earned him the Nobel Prize. As someone unfamiliar with Japanese names, I sometimes found myself adrift among the characters. Yet, the familiar threads of Japanese tradition and the gentle wisdom flowing through each page kept me engaged. Ultimately, reading this was a rewarding journey.

The translation was good. The narration is surely good with nice voice modulations. However, it lacked the versatility that some narrators successfully employ. When that happens, the listener is not lost in the strange and thus unknown names of the characters.

Mastery of Yasunari Kawabata

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