WRITER

Yasunari Kawabata

1899 - 1972

Photo of Yasunari Kawabata

Icon of person Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成, Kawabata Yasunari, 11 June 1899 – 16 April 1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Yasunari Kawabata has received more than 1,174,632 page views. His biography is available in 109 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 105 in 2019). Yasunari Kawabata is the 169th most popular writer (up from 200th in 2019), the 18th most popular biography from Japan (up from 20th in 2019) and the 5th most popular Japanese Writer.

Yasunari Kawabata is most famous for his novel, The Sound of the Mountain.

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.2M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 73.57

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 109

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 7.03

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.49

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Izu no odoriko
1950
Yukiguni
1937
Yama no oto
1970
Utsukushisa to kanashimi to
1965
Senbazuru
Fiction
Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata’s Thousand Cranes is a luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead. While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, Kikuji encounters his father’s former mistress, Mrs. Ota. At first Kikuji is appalled by her indelicate nature, but it is not long before he succumbs to passion—a passion with tragic and unforeseen consequences, not just for the two lovers, but also for Mrs. Ota’s daughter, to whom Kikuji’s attachments soon extend. Death, jealousy, and attraction convene around the delicate art of the tea ceremony, where every gesture is imbued with profound meaning.
19554 / 5
Meijin
1970

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Yasunari Kawabata ranks 169 out of 7,302. Before him are Menander, Cyrano de Bergerac, Nicolas Flamel, Ivan Turgenev, H. G. Wells, and Pindar. After him are Orhan Pamuk, Karel Čapek, Pliny the Younger, François-René de Chateaubriand, Wisława Szymborska, and Taras Shevchenko.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1899, Yasunari Kawabata ranks 10. Before him are Jorge Luis Borges, Al Capone, Vladimir Nabokov, Friedrich Hayek, Frederick IX of Denmark, and Lavrentiy Beria. After him are Humphrey Bogart, László Bíró, Fred Astaire, Duke Ellington, Francis Poulenc, and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia. Among people deceased in 1972, Yasunari Kawabata ranks 5. Before him are Harry S. Truman, Ip Man, Asta Nielsen, and Frederick IX of Denmark. After him are Edward VIII, M. C. Escher, Maria Goeppert Mayer, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Igor Sikorsky, and Ezra Pound.

Others Born in 1899

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Others Deceased in 1972

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Yasunari Kawabata ranks 18 out of 6,245. Before him are Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542), Naruhito (1960), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536), Emperor Taishō (1879), Isoroku Yamamoto (1884), and Yoko Ono (1933). After him are Osamu Dazai (1909), Murasaki Shikibu (973), Emperor Jimmu (-711), Shinzō Abe (1954), Koji Tanaka (1955), and Osamu Tezuka (1928).

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Among WRITERS In Japan

Among writers born in Japan, Yasunari Kawabata ranks 5. Before him are Miyamoto Musashi (1584), Matsuo Bashō (1644), Haruki Murakami (1949), and Yukio Mishima (1925). After him are Osamu Dazai (1909), Murasaki Shikibu (973), Kenzaburō Ōe (1935), Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892), Natsume Sōseki (1867), Kazuo Ishiguro (1954), and Kōbō Abe (1924).

Japanese born Writers

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