Kawabata Yasunari

Kawabata Yasunari (川端 康成, June 14, 1899 - April 16, 1972) was a Japanese novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968.

Kawabata was orphaned when he was two and soon long his grandparents also. While still a student at Tokyo Imperial University he joined Riichi Yokomitsu in starting Bungei Jidai (The Artistic Age), a neo-Impressionist journal.

Kawabata committed suicide in 1972.

Kawabata debuted with Izu no Tonoriko ("The Dancer of Izu") in 1927. In 1937 appeared his novel Yukiguni ("Snow Country"), a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo playboy and a provincial geisha in a remote hot springs town. Yukiguni established Kawabata as one of Japan's foremost authors and became an instant classic. Senbazuru ("Thousand Cranes") continued some of the themes of Yukiguni.

List of Works

• Snow Country (雪国, Yukiguni, 1937)
• Senbazuru ("Thousand Cranes", 1949-52)
• The Sound of the Mountain (山の韵, Yama no oto, 1949-54)
• The Old Capital (Koto, 1962)
• Beauty and Sadness (美しさと悲しみと, Utsukushisa to kanashimi to, 1965)
• The Master of Go (1972)