Yasunari Kawabata Overview

The arts at the beginning of twentieth century saw a turn from social realism to a more expressionistic pathos, and the work of Yasunari Kawabata (Kawabata Yasunari) was no exception. In the 1920s his association with the Neo-Sensualists says it all:... [more]

The arts at the beginning of twentieth century saw a turn from social realism to a more expressionistic pathos, and the work of Yasunari Kawabata (Kawabata Yasunari) was no exception. In the 1920s his association with the Neo-Sensualists says it all: these writers employed lyrical and impressionistic techniques to become the voice of a new generation of Japanese artists. Kawabata was their most celebrated member. He gained attention for his use of Western aesthetic techniques, but he later withdrew from Modernist avant-garde writing. His style eventually moved toward a combination of a Japanese aesthetic with psychological narrative and melancholic tone. Kawabata's first literary success in 1925 came with the novella, "The Izu Dancer." More poetic than narrative, the novel is meant to be considered for its individual parts rather than as a whole. It is a novel of contrasting themes -- for example, the image of a bustling Tokyo is cast against an idyllic world of hot springs beyond the city. The contradiction between humanity's nobility and its baseness is also explored in this work. A profound preoccupation with loneliness and death threads its way through much of Kawabata's work. This motif is clearly evident in 1937's "Snow Country" (ranked by many as Kawabata's magnum opus). Also a study in contrasts, this novel explores the relationship between its protagonist and two geisha he meets while vacationing. All three are incapable of finding and expressing their love for one another -- here Kawabata posits an alienated world in which a myriad of barriers bar the possibility of fullfillment. Kawabata spent 12 years writing "Snow Country." The committee that awarded him the Nobel Prize in 1968 cited this novel in particular, praising Kawabata's "narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." In 1972 Kawabata committed suicide, grieved by failing health and the suicide of friend and fellow-novelist Yukio Mishima. Before this fatal act, however, the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel succeeded in stamping his distinctive style on twentieth-century letters. [show less]