Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Thousand Cranes

By: Yasunari Kawabata
Narrated by: Brian Nishii
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

With a restraint that barely conceals the ferocity of his characters' passions, one of Japan's great postwar novelists tells the luminous story of Kikuji and the tea party he attends with Mrs. Ota, the rival of his dead father's mistress. A tale of desire, regret, and sensual nostalgia, every gesture has a meaning, and even the most fleeting touch or casual utterance has the power to illuminate entire lives - sometimes in the same moment that it destroys them.

©1986 Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Snow Country cover art
Beauty and Sadness cover art
Scent of Cloves cover art
Sanshiro cover art
A Personal Matter cover art
Kokoro cover art
Sister of My Heart cover art
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea cover art
Lady Helena Investigates: Book One of the Scott-De Quincy Mysteries cover art
The Forsyte Saga cover art
A Company of Swans cover art
Love cover art
After Such Kindness cover art
The Winter Folly cover art
The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1 cover art
The Good Apprentice cover art

Critic reviews

"Narrator Brian Nishii uses calm, understated tones to fully illuminate Kikuji’s emotional state as he tries to make sense of his unruly desires, his feelings of loss, and his deep loneliness. Nishii adds depth to Kawabata’s spare, disciplined language, never resorting to theatricality yet providing significant moments of reflection and contemplation as Kikuji works to achieve awareness. In both substance and delivery, Thousand Cranes is as subtle and minimal as a Japanese painting." (AudioFile)
"A novel of exquisite artistry...rich suggestibility...and a story that is human, vivid and moving." (New York Herald Tribune)
“Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible. This is a tragedy in soft focus, but its passions are fierce." (CommonWealth)

What listeners say about Thousand Cranes

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.