The Makioka Sisters (細雪 Sasameyuki?, lit. light snow, 1943-1948) is a Japanese novel written by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō. It has been called “the greatest cosmopolitan novel since the Meiji Restoration” The novel follows the lives of the Makiokas, a wealthy Osaka family, from the autumn of 1936 to April, 1941, focusing on the family’s attempts to find a husband for the third sister, Yukiko. It depicts the decline of the family’s upper-middle-class, suburban lifestyle as the specter of World War II and Allied Occupation hangs over the novel.