Winter Sleep

Book excerpt: The legendary Japanese master's Winter Sleep take you into the hardboiled world of art—where ex-cons are philosophers, young lovers are combustible, and aesthetics is life. An artist's quest for growth from one of the world's greatest stylists. Nakagi, an ex-con painter who has sequestered himself in a mountain cabin, is trying to elevate his art. The only thing breaking his solitude are the visits of two women: an art dealer who wants him to produce the sort of paintings that she would like to buy from him, and a young aspiring, and soulful apprentice. When Nakagi welcomes an escaped felon into the emotionally fraught fold, and begins to teach him to pain well. Winter Sleep awakens to a literally incendiary climax.