Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read. Kawabata was born in 1899 in Osaka, Japan. After the early death of his parents, he was raised in the country by his maternal grandfather and attended a Japanese public school. From 1920 to 1924, Kawabata studied at the Tokyo Imperial University, where he received his degree. He was one of the founders of the publication Bungei Jidai, the medium of a new movement in modern Japanese literature. He became a member of the Art Academy of Japan in 1953 and four years later he was appointed chairman of the P.E.N. Club of Japan. In 1927, Kawabata made his debut as a writer with the short story Izu no odoriko (Izu dancer). After several distinguished works, the novel Yukiguni (1937) (Snow Country) secured Kawabata’s position as one of the leading authors in Japan. In 1949, Kawabata started the publication of the serials Senbazuru (Thousand Cranes) and Yama no Oto (The Sound of the Mountain). Mizuumi (1955) The Lake and Koto (1962) The Old Capital belong to his later works; The Old Capital made the deepest impression in the author’s native country and abroad. Kawabata was also known for his involvement in the traditional Japanese arts, such as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and classical theater. He was a master of the game of go and wrote a novel based on a famous match, Meijin (1954) (The Master of Go). He was also a friend and mentor of the younger writer Yukio Mishima, who admired Kawabata’s style and sensibility. Kawabata suffered from depression and loneliness in his later years, especially after the death of his wife in 1967 and the suicide of Mishima in 1970. He gassed himself in his home in Zushi, Kanagawa, in 1972, leaving behind several unfinished works and a note that read I have nothing to say, only to express my thanks to the great Buddha, thanks, thanks. He was buried in Kamakura Reien Cemetery, near his former residence in Kamakura, where he had written many of his works.