Snow Country (雪国 Yukiguni) is the first full-length novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel established Kawabata as one of Japan's foremost authors and became an instant classic. Edward G. Seidensticker, noted scholar of Japanese literature whose English translation of the novel was published in 1957, described the work as "perhaps Kawabata's masterpiece." Sir Edward Appletons medal Photographs of Nobel Prize Medals. ... Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成 Kawabata Yasunari, June 14, 1899 – April 16, 1972) was a Japanese novelist whose spare, lyrical and subtly shaded prose won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. ... Edward G. Seidensticker (born February 11, 1921, in Castle Rock, Colorado) is a noted scholar and translator of Japanese literature, particularly known for his accurate English version of The Tale of Genji (1976) and for his landmark translations of Yasunari Kawabata, which led to Kawabatas winning the Nobel Prize...

The novel began as a single short story published in a literary journal in 1934, but Kawabata kept writing about the characters after turning in his first manuscript, submitted the next section of the novel to a magazine that had a later submission date. Kawabata continued writing in this fashion, with parts of the novel ultimately appearing in six different magazines before he published the first full version in 1937. Kawabata continued to work on the novel, again adding new chapters, until it reached its final form in 1947. Snow Country is a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha that takes place in the remote hot spring (onsen) town of Yuzawa on the west side of the Japanese Alps, a region where Arctic winds cross the Sea of Japan, picking up moisture and depositing it as snow that reaches depths of four to five meters. The lonely atmosphere suggested by the title infuses the book. 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... Tokyo ) , literally eastern capital, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and includes the highly urbanized central area formerly known as the city of Tokyo which is the heart of the Greater Tokyo Area. ... Women dressed as maiko (apprentice geisha) in Kyoto, Japan Characters for Geisha, lit. ... Green Dragon Spring at Norris Geyser A hot spring is a place where warm or hot groundwater issues from the ground on a regular basis for at least a predictable part of the year, and is significantly above the ambient ground temperature (which is usually around 55~57 F or... Outdoor pool, Naruko Outdoor Onsen on Nakanoshima island in Nachikatsuura, Wakayama Prefecture Old onsen in Hakone An private outdoor rotenburo in Gorakadan Guidebook to Hakone from 1811 This rotenburo at Jigokudani Onsen is for Japanese Macaques. ... Yuzawa (湯沢町; -machi) is an onsen (hot spring) town located in Minamiuonuma District in the mountains of the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. ... The Japanese Alps is a mountain range in Japan, consisting of Hida Mountains, Kiso Mountains, and Akashi Mountains. ... The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border The Arctic is the area around the Earths North Pole. ... The Sea of Japan (East Sea) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. ...

The hot springs of the region were home to inns that were visited by men traveling alone and in groups, where paid female companionship was a staple. The geisha of the hot springs enjoyed nothing like the social status of their more artistically-trained sisters in Kyoto and Tokyo and were usually little more than prostitutes, whose brief careers inevitably ended in a downward spiral. The choice of one of these women as the heroine adds to the atmosphere of the book. Kyoto Hall Mayor Yorikane Masumoto Address 〒604-8571 Kyoto-shi, Nakagyo-ku, Teramachi-Oike, 488 Phone number 075-222-3111 Official website: Kyoto City This page is about the city Kyoto. ...

The liaison between the geisha Komako and the male protagonist, a wealthy loner who is a self-appointed expert on Western ballet, is thus doomed to failure. The nature of that failure and the parts played by others form the theme of the book. The Waltz of the Snowflakes from Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker. ...

In structure, the novel suggests the technique of the haiku poetic form, both for its many delicate contrapuntal touches and its use of brief scenes to tell a larger story. As Shimamora (the protagonist) begins to understand his place in the universe, the idea of mono no aware is also quite apparent. Haiku (俳句)is a mode of Japanese poetry, a late 19th century revision by Masaoka Shiki of the older hokku (発句), the opening verse of a linked verse form, haikai no renga . ... Mono no aware (Japanese: 物の哀れ IPA: ??; literally, the pathos of things) is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of the impermanence of things, and a gentle sadness at their passing. ...

Kawabata again returned to Snow Country near the end of his life. A few months before his death in 1973, he wrote an abbreviated version of the work, which he titled "Gleanings from Snow Country," that shortened the novel to a few spare pages, a length that placed it among his Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, a form to which Kawabata devoted peculiar attention for more 50 years. An English translation of "Gleanings from Snow Country" was published in 1988 by J. Martin Holman in the collection Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories is the name Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata gave to the 140 stories he wrote over his career as a writer, and was used as the title of a collection of translations of 71 of these. ... J. Martin Holman has published translations of modern Japanese and Korean literature, including The Old Capital (1987), Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (1988), and The Dancing Girl of Izu (1998), by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata, and The Book of Masks (1989) and Shadows of Sound (1990), by...

Snow Country is one of the three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in awarding Yasunari Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the other two works being The Old Capital and Thousand Cranes. The Old Capital (translated from the Japanese Koto) is a novel by Yasunari Kawabata originally published in 1962. ... Thousand Cranes is a novel by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. ...

Another Japanese novel, also titled snow country,but spelled in katakana(スノー・クントリ) as opposed to the original's Kanji (both are Japanese books), references this work. In the homage to the original, a Japanese student undertakes tranlating a book from Enlish into Japanese for summer homework. The student doesn't realize that he is in fact tranlating a translation of the orginal work. This second Snow Country tale serves as a satire of the Japanese Education system, as well as Japanese people's low English aptitude. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Kanji (Japanese: ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), arabic numerals, and the Roman alphabet. ...