A short story by Yasunari Kawabata; translated by Burritt Sabin
Yasunari Kawabata was born in Osaka in 1899. His father, a doctor, died when he was 2 years old, and his mother when he was 3. He was raised by his grandparents, but his grandmother died when he was 8 years old, and his grandfather when he was 16. This early loss of his entire family strengthened his desire to express himself through writing. He made his debut in the literary world in a magazine he published with a classmate while he was a student at Tokyo Imperial University.
After graduation from university, Kawabata and a friend began publication of a magazine called Bungei Jidai (Literary Age), which placed him in the neosensualist literary movement. "Izu no Odoriko (The Izu Dancer)," published in this magazine in 1926, is famous as his first masterpiece.