Books Apr 16, 2022
Japan’s first Nobel literature laureate a towering figure 50 years after death
by Will Fee
The anniversary of the death of Yasunari Kawabata is being marked with an exhibition and a new adaptation of one of his works.
Books / Reviews Aug 1, 2020
‘A Late Chrysanthemum’: A short story collection full of pathos and maturity
by Stephen Mansfield
This anthology of short stories may tend toward the morally dubious, but it’s a solid introduction to literary masters of the 20th century.
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Aug 4, 2018
'First Snow on Fuji': Yasunari Kawabata exhibits his mastery of the short story
by T.C. Jones
In "First Snow on Fuji," nine short stories and one dramatic work selected by Kawabata himself highlight this literary master's minimalist prose.
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES May 19, 2018
Yasunari Kawabata's 'Dandelions' probes the nature of mental illness
by Damian Flanagan
Initially published by Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) in 22 installments between June 1964 and October 1968, and subsequently revised from his notes after his death, "Dandelions" examines the nature of memory.
Books Dec 2, 2017
Yasunari Kawabata's surrealist window on the world
by Damian Flanagan
Opening with one of the most famous lines in Japanese literature — "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country," shifting us at speed from the darkness of the tunnel into the bright light of the snow — Yasunari Kawabata's novel "Snow ...
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Aug 5, 2017
'The Lake': Yasunari Kawabata at his darkest
by T.C. Jones
Yasunari Kawabata is often seen in the West as one of the quintessential modern Japanese writers. His most famous novels are filled with tea ceremonies and geisha and his prose is a consummate example of mono no aware, the Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty ...
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Apr 29, 2017
by Kris Kosaka
Yasunari Kawabata's last published novel plumbs the depths of human emotion
Books / Reviews Dec 3, 2016
An exploration of the game at the heart of 'The Master of Go'
by Tyler Rothmar
The Chinese board game of go has fallen in and out of fashion over the past 2,500 years. In China during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), go was seen as a pastime for gamblers and layabouts, but by the 1600s it had come to ...
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Mar 19, 2016
Yasunari Kawabata meditates on nature and Westernization in 'The Old Capital'
by Nicolas Gattig
Yasunari Kawabata's novels are like secret gardens with sadly beautiful flowers. First published in 1962, "The Old Capital" — an elegiac meditation on the cultural heritage of Kyoto — was one of the works that earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is ...
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Jul 4, 2015
Yasunari Kawabata's 'Palm-of-the-Hand Stories' are taut tales of the human heart
by William Bradbury
"Palm-of-the-Hand Stories" is a collection of 70 very brief stories by Nobel Prize-winner Yasunari Kawabata that were written between the early 1920s and 1970s. It contains poetic depictions of emotions, a focus on feelings rather than understanding. These stories present the chaos of the ...
Books / Reviews | ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES Mar 28, 2015
Morbid beauty and charged sexuality of Yasunari Kawabata's 'Thousand Cranes'
by Stephen Mansfield
Yasunari Kawabata's tense 1952 novel contains all the writer's hallmarks: beautiful language, obsessive sexuality and contempt for the era. Thousand Cranes, by Yasunari Kawabata Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker 147 pages.TUTTLE, Fiction. Kikuji, the main character of ...
Travel Jan 3, 2015
In Kawabata's footsteps to 'Snow Country'
by Dan Asenlund
"The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country." Few opening lines in the canon of domestic literature match that of Yasunari Kawabata's "Snow Country" in terms of fame. Pretty much every Japanese person knows it by heart having memorized it ...