Eclipse
Regular price
€21.99
Winner, 2025-2026 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University
In the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy. Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist’s quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters—culminating in a total solar eclipse—strikes the village, with profound consequences.
Keiichiro Hirano’s Eclipse was a meteoric literary sensation when it first appeared in 1998. Its author, still an undergraduate, was hailed as a prodigy; the book received Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and became a bestseller. Set on the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, Eclipse depicts a society that is on the surface vastly different from modern-day Japan. Yet its account of a challenge to dualistic binaries and ossified worldviews holds striking contemporary resonance and philosophical depth. Taking the form of a memoir, Eclipse brings together an evocative portrayal of its historical setting, including the lore of medieval alchemy, with a rich literary lexicon, lush imagery, and psychological intricacy. This vivid translation offers Anglophone readers a vital work by one of Japan’s most distinctive voices.
In the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy. Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist’s quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters—culminating in a total solar eclipse—strikes the village, with profound consequences.
Keiichiro Hirano’s Eclipse was a meteoric literary sensation when it first appeared in 1998. Its author, still an undergraduate, was hailed as a prodigy; the book received Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and became a bestseller. Set on the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, Eclipse depicts a society that is on the surface vastly different from modern-day Japan. Yet its account of a challenge to dualistic binaries and ossified worldviews holds striking contemporary resonance and philosophical depth. Taking the form of a memoir, Eclipse brings together an evocative portrayal of its historical setting, including the lore of medieval alchemy, with a rich literary lexicon, lush imagery, and psychological intricacy. This vivid translation offers Anglophone readers a vital work by one of Japan’s most distinctive voices.
Keiichiro Hirano is an acclaimed Japanese novelist who has published fifteen major works of fiction in a variety of genres and styles. His other books in English translation are A Man (2020) and At the End of the Matinee (2021).
Brent de Chene is professor emeritus at Waseda University.
Charles De Wolf is professor emeritus at Keio University.
Brent de Chene is professor emeritus at Waseda University.
Charles De Wolf is professor emeritus at Keio University.