Yasunari Kawabata was born on 11 June 1899 in Osaka. A Japanese novelist and short-story writer born in Osaka, Kawabata was orphaned in childhood and grew up with his grandfather. He came to prominence in the 1920s with The Izu Dancer and became a leading figure of modernist literature. His works, including Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain and The Old Capital, are marked by a delicate, lyrical style, themes of beauty, loneliness and transience, and the influence of classical Japanese aesthetics. In 1968 he became the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a mentor of the younger writer Yukio Mishima. He died in 1972, a death generally ruled a suicide.
Before and after
- 10 April 1899Birth of Vladimir Nabokov
- 29 April 1899Birth of Duke Ellington
- 8 May 1899Birth of Friedrich Hayek
- 10 May 1899Birth of Fred Astaire
- 11 June 1899Birth of Yasunari Kawabata
- 11 July 1899Founding of Fiat
- 21 July 1899Birth of Ernest Hemingway
- 29 July 1899Founding of the Permanent Court of Arbitration
- from August 1899 to September 1901Boxer Rebellion
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1792Publication of Dream of the Red Chamber
- 21 February 1848Publication of The Communist Manifesto
- 18 September 1851Founding of The New York Times
- 1857Rise of Symbolism
- 28 December 1895The Lumiere brothers hold the first public film screening
- 1909Rise of Futurism
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.