Rivals

Nagai Kafu (1879-1959) is one of the most famous Japanese writers of the "new era." Interest in his personality and work remains unabated in Japan to this day, and his main books have been translated into all European languages.

"Rivals" is perhaps the most vivid depiction in all of Japanese literature of the everyday life of geishas during the "era of electricity and telephones." Nagai Kafu knew his heroines well in real life — for some time, he was even married to a famous geisha. Until the last days of his long life, Kafu remained a regular at the entertainment world, but geishas were for him not only the best conversationalists and the most desirable women. He saw them as guardians of a special layer of Japanese urban culture, while he perceived himself as the heir to a centuries-old tradition, a singer of the "world of willows and flowers," as the entertainment districts were called in China and Japan.