The Waiting Years: A Novel

There was Suga, the innocent, introspective girl from a respectable but impoverished family; the outgoing, cheerful, almost boyish Yumi; the flirtatious, seductive Miya, who soon found her father-in-law more dependable as a man than his brutish son.... And at the center, rejected yet dominating them all, the near tragic figure of the wife Tomo, whose passionate heart was always, until that final day, held in check by an old-fashioned code.

In a series of colorful, unforgettable scenes, Enchi brilliantly handles the human interplay within the ill-fated Shirakawa family. Japan's leading woman novelist & a member of the prestigious Art Academy, she combines a graceful, evocative style that consciously echoes the Tale of Genji with keen insight & an impressive ability to develop her characters over a long period of time. Her work is rooted deep in the female psychology, & it is her women above all-so clearly differentiated yet all so utterly feminine-who live in the memory. 

With The Waiting Years, a new & important literary figure makes her debut in the Western world.