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A beautiful girl, treated as an only child by considerate adoptive parents, is shocked to meet her identical twin at a fair. She learns that she and her twin sister were separated immediately after birth because of superstitions. Her twin had an unhappy upbringing. An earnest suitor is confused as to which of the two he should pursue.

The novel earned Mr. Kawabata the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, alongside "The Snow Country" and "The Sound of Mountains." The story is set in Kyoto, where the author delicately depicts the changing seasons and festivals. The main character, Chieko, is the only daughter of a kimono wholesaler, abandoned at birth. She meets her twin sister Naeko on the night of the Gion Festival, and the story revolves around their relationship...... The author's theme of "Let the Kyoto Region Remain Forever" is evident throughout the story. The novel is close to my heart as I lived in Kyoto for four years. The film adaptation was made in 1963 and received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. In the late 1960s, five years after the film was made, I was a university student working part-time as a cameraman's assistant on a TV production team. Just at this time, Shima Iwashita, the lead actress in the film was appearing in a period drama, and I have a fond memory of working with her in the studio and of being able to talk about "The Old Capital" with her as if we were good old friends.