Yasunari Kawabata - Nobel Prize in Literature, 1968 (18 books)

* Yasunari Kawabata - Nobel Prize in Literature, 1968 (18 books)

YASUNARI KAWABATA (1899–1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer who suffered the tragic loss of his entire immediate family during his childhood, a profound isolation that deeply colored his subsequent writing. He went on to craft a literary legacy defined by haunting beauty, melancholic nostalgia, and a profound engagement with traditional Japanese aesthetics. He received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind."

Kawabata’s principal novels stand as towering achievements in twentieth-century world literature, seamlessly blending modern psychological insights with classical Japanese sensibilities. His masterpiece, SNOW COUNTRY (1937), tells the story of a doomed love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha against the backdrop of a remote, snow-bound hot spring town. He followed this success with THOUSAND CRANES (1952), a novel that uses the intricate rituals of the traditional tea ceremony to explore guilt, grief, and erotic desire in post-war Japan. THE MASTER OF GO (1954), which Kawabata considered his finest work, semi-fictionalizes a monumental, multi-month board game match, serving as an elegy for a vanishing traditional world. Later masterpieces like THE SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN (1954) and THE HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES (1961) delved deeper into the psychology of aging, mortality, and repressed longing.

In addition to his longer narratives, Kawabata was a prolific master of brief, evocative fiction, famously pioneering a minimalist genre he termed "palm-of-the-hand stories." His first major critical success came with the novella THE DANCING GIRL OF IZU (1926), which captured the bittersweet, fleeting connection between a lonely student and a young traveling performer. Decades of his ultra-short fiction were later compiled in the definitive anthology PALM-OF-THE-HAND STORIES (1971), showcasing his unique ability to distill vast emotional landscapes into just a few paragraphs.

JAPAN, THE BEAUTIFUL, AND MYSELF (1969) contains the text of Kawabata's 1968 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which contextualizes his writing within the framework of Zen Buddhism, classical poetry, and traditional aesthetics.


The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format as noted:

== NOVELS ==

* Beauty and Sadness [tr. Hibbett] (Penguin, 2011) – ePUB
* Beauty and Sadness [tr. Hibbett] (Vintage, 2013) – ePUB
* Dandelions [tr. Emmerich] (Penguin, 2019) – ePUB
* The Lake [tr. Tsukimura] (Kodansha, 1980) – ePUB
* The Master of Go [tr. Seidensticker] (Vintage, 2013) – ePUB
* The Master of Go [tr. Seidensticker] (Yellow Jersey, 2015) – ePUB
* The Old Capital [tr. Holman] (Counterpoint, 2006) – ePUB / PDF
* The Rainbow [tr. Trowell] (Vintage, 2023) – ePUB
* The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa [tr. Freedman] (California, 2005) – PDF
* Snow Country [tr. Seidensticker] (Penguin, 2011) – ePUB
* Snow Country [tr. Seidensticker] (Vintage, 2013) – ePUB
* The Sound of the Mountain [tr. Seidensticker] (Penguin, 2011) – ePUB
* The Sound of the Mountain [tr. Seidensticker] (Tuttle, 2002) – ePUB / PDF
* Thousand Cranes [tr. Seidensticker] (Penguin, 2011) – ePUB
* Thousand Cranes [tr. Seidensticker] (Vintage, 2013) – ePUB

== SHORT STORIES ==

* The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories [tr. Holman] (Counterpoint, 1998) – PDF
* First Snow on Fuji [tr. Emmerich] (Counterpoint, 1999) – PDF
* House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories [tr. Seidensticker] (Vintage, 2017) – ePUB / PDF
* The Izu Dancer and Other Stories [tr. Seidensticker] (Tuttle, 2011) – ePUB
* Palm-of-the-Hand Stories [tr. Dunlop & Holman] (North Point, 1988) – ePUB / PDF^

== NON-FICTION ==

* Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself [tr. Seidensticker] (Kodansha, 1969) – PDF

PDF^ courtesy of @pharmakate


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