The Twilight Years
The Twilight Years, a 1972 Japanese novel by Sawako Ariyoshi, sold over a million copies in her home country and was praised by the Japan-studies community in foreign countries as a singular novel, "the closest representation of modern Japanese life" according to Donald Keene and a forthright, insightful work into the experience of modern Japanese women. The work, which begins with the married protagonist's father-in-law seemingly doddering around in senility on a winter street underdressed, deals with the twin issues of Aging of Japan and role of women in Japan, who were/are de facto expected to be caretakers of elderly parents or grandparents in a household.