[AnemicOak]

The Brothers: The Tsutsumi Family by Lesley Downer - FREE
Amazon US | CA | UK | AU | DE

‘Talking about business - you have to go right to the gates of prison ...’

‘The Brothers’ is the hundred year saga of the loves, lives and rivalries of one of Japan’s most glamorous business dynasties. Set against the background of Japan’s rise to become one of the world’s most prosperous and technically advanced countries, this is the epic story of two generations of the Tsutsumi family, famous in Japan as much for their hatred of each other as for their fabled wealth.

At the heart of it are three men: the roguish father with his string of mistresses who built the family fortune before and during World War II; the illegitimate son who inherited it and turned it into a multi-million dollar empire; and the spurned legitimate son - rebel, poet, one-time communist - who inherited a single run-down department store which he used as the basis of an empire of style.

The Tsutsumis are one of Japan’s greatest dynasties and, like the Rockefellers or Getty’s in the west, have achieved a near-mythic status. Theirs is the ultimate rags-to-riches tale, a drama of cut throat business intrigues and ties of honour, family rivalry and the trials of wives and concubines, set against the turbulent background of Japan in the twentieth century.

Lesley Downer gained unprecedented access to the Tsutsumi family and those close to them. Here is a unique window on vast wealth and power Japanese style, taking us beyond the stereotype of pinstriped drones to a sweeping drama of Shakespearian proportions.