Yasunari Kawabata

Kawabata was born in 1899 in Tenjinbashi, Kita Ward, Osaka, to his father Eikichi, a physician, and his mother Gen.
When he was 1 year and 7 months old, his father’s tuberculosis worsened, and his parents moved to Higashiyodogawa Ward, Osaka, near his mother’s family home.
His mother had also contracted tuberculosis, so Kawabata was left in the care of her family.
His father died in 1901, and his mother died in 1902, both from tuberculosis.

After losing his parents, Kawabata moved with his grandparents to Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture. His older sister Yoshiko was placed with the Akioka family (his mother’s younger sister’s in-laws), and the siblings were separated.
His grandmother died in 1906, and his grandfather died in 1914, leaving him completely alone at 14.

As a child, Kawabata was said to have a kind of “premonition,” such as guessing where lost items were, predicting visitors for the next day, or forecasting the weather, and some even called him a prodigy.
He also inherited his father’s frail constitution and was born prematurely. Sickly and a small eater, he was raised with great care by his grandmother.

After starting elementary school, he often missed classes but still earned strong grades and stood out for his writing. By fifth and sixth grade, he rarely missed school, ranked at the top of his class, and was good at drawing as well. He is said to have read every book in the school library.

Kawabata read widely, including works by Saneatsu Mushanokoji and other Shirakaba writers, Shoken Kamitsukasa, Shu Ema, Junichiro Tanizaki, and Dostoevsky. After a classmate’s work appeared in the local weekly Keihan Shinpo, he developed a strong desire to see his own writing in print.
He began submitting tanka to magazines such as Bunsho Sekai, but was repeatedly rejected and felt disappointment and despair.
He then visited Keihan Shinpo and succeeded in getting his short fiction and tanka published.

Later, he published his debut work in Chuo Koron and grew eager to connect with Tokyo’s literary circles.
In the autumn of his 19th year, he traveled to Izu and joined a troupe of traveling performers, an experience that later inspired The Dancing Girl of Izu.

Alongside a steady stream of new works, he was also active as a critic, mentored many emerging writers, served as president of Japan PEN Club and vice president of International PEN, helped promote cultural exchange between East and West, became the first Japanese Nobel laureate in literature, and contributed to the founding of the Museum of Modern Japanese Literature-leaving a broad and lasting legacy.

In 1972, Kawabata died by suicide in an apartment, using a gas pipe.
No note was left behind, and the reason remains unknown.
The sudden death of a Nobel Prize-winning author shocked people in Japan and around the world.

Set in the hot spring town of Echigo-Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture, this novel follows a geisha who works in the resort and a married man as their relationship deepens.
Through poetic language, it portrays Japan’s beautiful four seasons and showcases Kawabata’s signature style.

Based on Kawabata’s travels in Izu, this story follows a young man on a journey who develops a tender, fleeting love for a 14-year-old girl he meets along the way.
It is one of Kawabata’s best-known works, praised for its graceful depiction of emotional nuance.

The story centers on an inn called “House of the Sleeping Beauties,” which offers a service where members can lie beside young women who have been put to sleep with pills. The protagonist visits the inn.
As he gazes at a sleeping young woman, he reflects on women from his past.
Its sensual imagery is rendered with striking beauty, and it has been adapted into films outside Japan as well.

Kawabata’s sharp eyes were distinctive, and he had a habit of staring at people for a long time.
One story says that when a young female editor visited him for the first time, they sat face to face, but he didn’t say a word for 30 minutes—only stared. She finally burst into tears, and he reportedly asked, “What’s wrong?”

While writing The Dancing Girl of Izu, he reportedly stayed at an inn for four and a half years without paying a single yen.
He often drank on credit, and when tabs stopped being accepted, he would call editors or fellow writers and have them pay.
At the core was his belief that “money goes around,” and he was blunt about it: “If you have it, you pay. If you don’t, you don’t.” When someone complained that bars in Ginza were expensive, he is said to have replied, “Then you just don’t pay, do you?”
If he wanted something, no matter how expensive, he would borrow money or put it on credit and then default.
One day he visited the Bungeishunju editorial office and asked the president, “How much is in the safe?” When the president replied, “Huh? Maybe around 3 million yen...,” Kawabata said he “wanted a vase” and took the entire amount home.
At the time, he hadn’t published any books with Bungeishunju, nor contributed any writing.
When the company president later changed, the debt quietly disappeared.
His “debt skills” were, in a sense, almost genius.

When he learned he would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, he went on a buying spree—starting with a Tomioka Tessai folding screen said to cost 70 million yen—and purchased about 100 million yen worth of art, saying, “It’s fine, I’ll pay with the Nobel Prize money.” But the prize money was 20 million yen.
After his death, more than Approx. 200 art pieces remained, including National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, along with many debts and unpaid tabs.

Opened in 1915 inside Tokyo Station’s Marunouchi building. A National Important Cultural Property, the Marunouchi Station Building is also a symbol of Tokyo, restored in 2012 to its original appearance.
In 1956, Kawabata stayed for about a month and wrote the novel On Being a Woman.
The hotel is also known as a favorite among famous writers.

Yugashima is a quiet hot spring area along the Kano River in the mountains of Amagi.
Hot spring inns are scattered among lush greenery, and Yumotokan is especially famous as the inn where Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata wrote The Dancing Girl of Izu.