YASUNARI KAWABATA (1899-1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer who won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind."

Kawabata achieved recognition with a number of early short stories, receiving acclaim for "The Dancing Girl of Izu" (1926) which explored the dawning eroticism of young love, and was successful because he used dashes of melancholy and even bitterness to offset what might have otherwise been overly sweet.  Most of his subsequent works explored similar themes.

One of his most famous novels is SNOW COUNTRY (1935-37), a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha, which takes place in a remote hot-spring town somewhere in the mountainous regions of northern Japan.  It established Kawabata as one of Japan's foremost authors and became an instant classic, described by Edward Seidensticker as "perhaps Kawabata's masterpiece."

Two of his most important post-war works are THOUSAND CRANES and THE SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN.  THOUSAND CRANES (1952) is a luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead.  While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents' deaths, Kikuji encounters his father's former mistress and soon succumbs to passion -- a passion with tragic and unforeseen consequences.  Death, jealousy, and attraction convene around the delicate art of the tea ceremony, where every gesture is imbued with profound meaning.  Themes of implicit incest, impossible love and impending death are again explored in THE SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN (1954), where the protagonist, an aging man, has grown disappointed of his children and has lost all passion for his wife.  He is strongly attracted to his daughter in law and his thoughts for her are interspersed with memories of another forbidden love, for his dead sister-in-law.

Kawabata considered his finest work to be THE MASTER OF GO (1951).  In this semi-fictional chronicle of a 1938 match played between a revered and heretofore invincible Master and a younger, more modern challenger, Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century.


The following books are in ePUB/MOBI format unless otherwise noted:

* BEAUTY AND SADNESS (Vintage, 1996).  Translated by Howard S. Hibbett.

* THE DANCING GIRL OF IZU & OTHER STORIES (Counterpoint, 1997).  Translated by J. Martin Holman. -- ePUB/MOBI + PDF

* FIRST SNOW ON FUJI (Counterpoint, 1999).  Translated by Michael Emmerich. -- PDF

* HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES & OTHER STORIES (Kodansha, 1969).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. -- PDF

* THE IZU DANCER & OTHER STORIES (Charles E. Tuttle, 1974).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker and Leon Picon.

* JAPAN, THE BEAUTIFUL, AND MYSELF: The 1968 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (Kodansha, 1969).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. -- PDF

* THE MASTER OF GO (Vintage, 1996).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

* THE OLD CAPITAL (Counterpoint, 2006).  Translated by J. Martin Holman. -- PDF

* PALM-OF-THE-HAND STORIES (North Point, 1988).  Translated by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman.  Scanned by and reproduced here with the kind permission of @pharmakate. 

* SNOW COUNTRY (Knopf, 1984).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. -- ePUB/MOBI + PDF

* THE SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN (Vintage, 1996).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

* THOUSAND CRANES (Penguin Classics, 2011).  Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

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