The Brothers; The Hidden World of Japan's Richest Family

New York: Random House, 1994. First U.S. Edition [stated[. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. DJ has slight wear and soiling and is price-clipped. xxvii, [1], 418, [2] pages. Map. Select Bibliography. Notes. Index. Ms. Downer is an author, journalist and historian. She has written many books, non-fiction and more recently fiction, about Japan. As a journalist and author she has given lectures - at the Japan Society, Asia House, the Royal Geographic Society, the British Museum, the Japan Society in New York and Japan Societies and Asia Societies across the US and the UK . She is the historical consultant for Northern Ballet's spectacular 2020 ballet Geisha. She has also been a visiting lecturer, teaching on the MA programme in Creative Writing (non-fiction) at City University in London. The Brothers was chosen as a New York Times 'Book of the Year'. This is the epic story of two generations of the Tsutsumi family, famous in Japan for their fabled wealth. At the heart of it are three men: the roguish father who built the family fortune before and during World War II; the illegitimate son who inherited it and turned it into a multi million dollar empire; and the spurned legitimate son - rebel, poet, one-time communist - who inherited a single run-down department store which he used as the basis of an empire of style. The Tsutsumis are one of Japan's greatest dynasties and, like the Rockefellers or Getty's in the west, have achieved a near-mythic status. Theirs is the ultimate rags-to-riches tale, a drama of cut throat business intrigues and ties of honor, family rivalry and the trials of wives and concubines, set against the turbulent background of Japan in the twentieth century. Lesley Downer gained unprecedented access to the Tsutsumi family and those close to them. Here is a unique window on vast wealth and power Japanese style, taking us beyond the stereotype of pinstriped drones to a sweeping drama of Shakespearian proportions.