Author Yasunari Kawabata was born in Osaka, Japan on June 14, 1899. He experienced numerous family deaths during his childhood including his parents, a sister, and his grandparents. He graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University in March 1924. He wrote both short stories including The Dancing Girl of Izu and novels including The Sound of the Mountains, Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Old Capital. In 1959, he received the Goethe Medal in Frankfurt and in 1968 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He committed suicide on April 16, 1972.
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