In Black and White

Explore the bittersweet intersection of fiction and reality in Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s In Black and White. Mizuno, a writer, pens a story about the perfect murder modeled after a fellow writer. However, when he realizes that he accidentally included the man's real name in his manuscript, he becomes paranoid that an actual murder will take place and that he will be the main suspect. This psychological and metafictional mystery takes readers on a journey through Mizuno's desperate attempts to establish an alibi, leading him down a rabbit hole of paranoid fantasies and encounters with the city's underworld. Originally published in 1928, this forgotten novel has been restored and translated, shedding light on Tanizaki's life and contributions to Japan’s literary and cultural scene in the 1920s.