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5 books

Screen adaptation

Beauty and Sadness

Yasunari Kawabata

A writer returns to Kyoto to revisit an old affair, reopening wounds that desire, memory and regret have never allowed to heal.

History

Ransom

Jay McInerney

An American arrives in Kyoto hoping to escape his past, but the search for a new self draws him toward troubling questions of belonging.

Literary fiction

The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto

Pico Iyer

A year in Kyoto to study Zen becomes a friendship with a Japanese housewife, opening an intimate window onto cultural misunderstanding and connection.

Travel writing

Screen adaptation

The Old Capital

Yasunari Kawabata

Kyoto's festivals, crafts and changing seasons surround an adopted daughter whose discoveries about her past unsettle the life she has always known.

Literary fiction

Screen adaptation

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Yukio Mishima

A young man's fascination with Kyoto's Golden Pavilion grows destructive, turning the pursuit of perfect beauty into a struggle over possession and selfhood.

Nonfiction

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Books worth travelling with.

Guides for this destination

Japan in Three Acts

Around the World in Five Books

Beauty and Sadness

Ransom

The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto

The Old Capital

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Your first journey. Your own pace.