Kawabata Yasunari was a short story writer and novelist who became the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. Orphaned at age two, Kawabata subsequently lost all other close relatives by age 15. After boarding school, Kawabata attended Tokyo Imperial University. During his career, Kawabata wrote numerous well-known novels and short stories, including Izu no Odoriko (1926; tr. The Izu Dancer, 1955), Yukiguni (1948; tr. Snow Country, 1956), Senbazuru (1949–51; tr. Thousand Cranes, 1958), and Meijin (1942; tr. The Master of Go, 1972). He was part of the neoperceptionist school of writing, which he helped define. Kawabata committed suicide in 1972, and the Kawabata Yasunari Prize was established in 1974 in his honor.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.