This volume eighteen presents essays, written by scholars from six countries, on Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), one of the great writers of the twentieth century. The essays were originally prepared for a landmark international symposium in Venice in 1995, at which twenty-two speakers addressed an audience of about two hundred students and scholars in the magnificent Aula Magna of the University of Venice. The essays have been significantly revised for this publication. Topics include Tanizaki’s fiction, plays, and film scenarios; his aesthetics; his place in Japanese intellectual history; his depiction of the West; his use of humor; and film adaptations of his works.In 1964 Tanizaki was elected to honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the first Japanese to be so honored; and it is widely believed that he was being considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.