was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read. Born in Osaka, Yasunari was orphaned when he was two, after which he lived with his grandparents. He had an older sister who was taken in by an aunt, and whom he met only once thereafter, at the age of ten (July 1909). Kawabata's grandmother died when he was seven (September 1906), and his grandfather when he was fifteen (May 1914). Having lost all close relatives, he moved in with his mother's family (the Kurodas). However, in January 1916, he moved into a boarding house near the junior high school (comparable to a modern high school) to which he had formerly commuted by train. After graduating from junior high school in March 1917, just before his 18th birthday, he moved to Tokyo, hoping to pass the e

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