Kawabata, Yasunari (Vol. 2) - Kawabata Yasunari 1899–1972
Kawabata Yasunari 1899–1972
A Nobel Prize-winning Japanese novelist and critic, Kawabata is best known for his novel Snow Country. (See also Contemporary Authors, obituary, Vols. 33-36.)
[Allusiveness] is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kawabata's work, part of his avowed intention to preserve the traditional taste (i.e., poetic sense) of Japan. One is, in fact, more likely to discover the meaning of Kawabata's symbols and significant gestures in his country's classics than in Freud or in the shinkankaku-ha group with which he has been associated.
The Shinkankaku-ha (variously translated as "neo-sensualists," "neo-impressionists," and "neo-perceptionists") were closely related to Kawabata's literary magazine, Bungei Jidai, but they divided and splintered into numerous groups. At times it seems that all they had in common was a reaction against the naturalism (and later the "proletarian...
[The entire page is 1139 words long]
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