Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, in 1958, The Izu Dancer, a story about a young man's travels through the Izu Peninsula, introduced Kawabata's prodigious talent to the West. Since its first printing, Kawabata, winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize, has been recognized as one of Japan's most distinguished writers. Also included in this collection are three stories by the prolific author Yasushi Inoue, the recipient of every major prize in Japanese literature: The Counterfeiter, Obasute, and The Full Moon. Inoue's stories, each of which are at least partially autobiographical, all reveal his great compassion for his fellow human being.
Authors
Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works 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 today. Nobel Lecture: 1968 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel\_prize...
Yasushi Inoue (井上靖) was a Japanese writer whose range of genres included poetry, essays, short fiction, and novels. Inoue is famous for his serious historical fiction of ancient Japan and the Asian continent, including Wind and Waves, Tun-huang, and Confucius, but his work also included semi-autobiographical novels and short fiction of great humor, pathos, and wisdom like Shirobamba and Asunaro Monogatari, which depicted the setting of the author's own life—Japan of the early to mid twentieth century—in revealing perspective. 1936 Chiba Kameo Prize —- Ruten,流転 1950 Akutagawa Prize —- Tōgyu,闘牛 1957 Ministry of Education Prize for Literature —- The Roof Tile of Tempyo,天平の甍 1959 Mainichi Press Prize —- Tun-huang,敦煌 1963 Yomiuri Prize —- Fūtō,風濤 (from Wikipedia)
