‘Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata’s is the closest to poetry’ New York Times Book Review

Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night he hears only the sound of death in the distant rumble from the mountain. The relationships which have previously defined his life

with his son, his wife, and his attractive daughter-in-law

are dissolving, and Shingo is caught between love and destruction.

Lyrical and precise, The Sound of the Mountain explores in immaculately crafted prose the changing roles of love and the truth we face in ageing.