An immeasurably influential female voice in post-war Japanese literature, Kono writes with a strange and disorienting beauty: her tales are marked by disquieting scenes, her characters all teetering on the brink of self-destruction....

This book analyzes the strategy and structure of successful Japanese manufacturing corporations. In spite of the depression during the 1990s, Japanese firms in high technology products have kept strong competitive power in the world market, revealing thestrength of Japanese management systems....