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In January 1935 Yasunari Kawabata published a short story about a Tokyo man visiting a geisha in a hot-spring town in the snow. He kept adding to it for the next twelve years, in separate magazine pieces, and the final version of Snow Country appeared only in 1948. Kawabata, born in Osaka in 1899 and orphaned by the age of four, became in 1968 the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy cited Snow Country, Thousand Cranes and The Old Capital; most of his work reached English through the translator Edward Seidensticker. This guide covers his 8 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1923–1965 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Yasunari Kawabata’s best-known books are Snow Country (1937, final version 1948), Thousand Cranes (1952), The Sound of the Mountain (1954), The Master of Go (1954) and Beauty and Sadness (1965). Start with Snow Country, the novel the Nobel committee named first in 1968. Below: all 8 key books in order, what each is about, and who translated them.
Where to Start with Yasunari Kawabata
If you want his defining novel
→ Snow Country (1937) — a geisha in a hot-spring town, written over twelve years.
If you want something very short
→ Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (1923) — stories of a page or two, written across his whole career.
If you want a family novel
→ The Sound of the Mountain (1954) — an old man and his daughter-in-law.
If you want something based on real events
→ The Master of Go (1954) — the 1938 Go match he covered as a reporter.
8 Yasunari Kawabata Books, in Order
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
Tanagokoro no shōsetsu: very short stories, often a page or two long, which Kawabata wrote from 1923 until the end of his life, more than 140 in all. The English selection of 70 stories, translated by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman, appeared in 1988.
The Dancing Girl of Izu
Izu no odoriko (1926), published in the journal Bungei Jidai, which Kawabata had co-founded in 1924. A semi-autobiographical story that brought him his first acclaim. It appeared in English in an early version by Edward Seidensticker and in 1997 in J. Martin Holman’s The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories.
Snow Country
Yukiguni: first published as a book in 1937, then extended and finished in 1948. Shimamura, a wealthy married man from Tokyo, returns to a remote hot-spring town in the snow country, where the geisha Komako falls in love with him, and he is drawn to a young woman, Yoko, whom he first sees on the train. The town is never named but is identified as Yuzawa. Translated by Edward Seidensticker (1956), who called it “perhaps Kawabata’s masterpiece”.
Thousand Cranes
Senbazuru (1952), a series of episodes centred on the tea ceremony that Kawabata began in 1949 and never completed. It was one of the three novels the Nobel committee named in 1968. Translated by Edward Seidensticker, and later published with Snow Country in one volume (1969).
The Sound of the Mountain
Yama no oto, written in instalments from 1949 to 1954. An old man who cannot bring himself to chide his own grown children finds comfort in his daughter-in-law. Translated by Edward Seidensticker (1970).
The Master of Go
Meijin, serialised from 1951 and published as a book in 1954. A semi-fictional account of the 1938 match between the ageing master Hon’inbō Shūsai and the rising player Minoru Kitani (“Otake” in the novel), which lasted almost six months; Kitani won by five points, and it was Shūsai’s last game. Kawabata had reported on the match for the Mainichi newspapers and reworked his columns into the novel. Translated by Edward Seidensticker (1972).
The Old Capital
Koto (1962), the latest of the three novels the Nobel committee named when it gave Kawabata the prize in 1968. Translated by J. Martin Holman (1987).
Beauty and Sadness
Utsukushisa to kanashimi to, serialised in Fujin Kōron from 1961 to 1963 and published as a book in 1965. Oki Toshio, a novelist in his fifties, takes a train to Kyoto to see Otoko Ueno, his lover when she was very young, now a celebrated painter. Her protégée and lover Keiko vows revenge on Oki and sets out to seduce his son Taichiro. Translated by Howard Hibbett (1975); filmed by Masahiro Shinoda (1965) and by Joy Fleury (1985), with Charlotte Rampling.
In What Order to Read Yasunari Kawabata
None of Kawabata’s novels continues another, so you can start anywhere. Publication order is a little misleading, because he wrote several books in instalments over years: Snow Country runs from 1935 to 1948, and Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain and The Master of Go were all being written at the same time, between 1949 and 1954.
A practical order is to begin with Snow Country, read a handful of the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories alongside it, then move to the postwar novels and end with Beauty and Sadness, his last major novel.
A reading path
1. Snow Country (1937/1948)
2. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (English 1988)
3. Thousand Cranes (1952)
4. The Sound of the Mountain (1954)
5. Beauty and Sadness (1965)
Everything Else Yasunari Kawabata Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 5 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels and novellas
4
4 books · 1930–1964
- 1930The Scarlet Gang of AsakusaAsakusa kurenaidan, serialised 1929–1930; translated by Alisa Freedman (2005)
- 1955The LakeMizuumi; translated by Reiko Tsukimura (1974)
- 1961House of the Sleeping BeautiesNemureru bijo; translated by Edward Seidensticker (1969)
- 1964One ArmKataude, a story; in English 1969
Lecture
1
1 book · 1969
- 1969Japan, the Beautiful and Myselfhis Nobel Lecture of 12 December 1968, translated by Edward Seidensticker
The years · 1899–1972
Quick facts about Yasunari Kawabata
- Known for
- Spare, lyrical novels of loneliness and beauty, above all Snow Country, which made him in 1968 the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- 1899
- Born in Osaka
- 1924
- Co-founds Bungei Jidai
- 1937
- Snow Country
- 1948
- President of Japanese P.E.N. (to 1965)
- 1968
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- 1972
- Dies in Zushi, aged 72
- Born
- 11 June 1899, Osaka, Japan; orphaned by the age of four and raised by his grandparents
- Education
- Tokyo Imperial University; English, then Japanese literature, graduating in 1924
- Movement
- Co-founded the journal Bungei Jidai (1924) and the Shinkankakuha, the “new sensations” school
- P.E.N.
- President of Japanese P.E.N., 1948–1965
- Prizes
- Nobel Prize in Literature (1968); Order of Culture (1961)
- Died
- 16 April 1972, Zushi, Kanagawa
The red mark is 1937: the first book edition of Snow Country, the novel he kept revising until 1948.
How Yasunari Kawabata Writes: What Is Left Undrawn
Kawabata started out in the avant-garde. In 1924 he and Riichi Yokomitsu founded the journal Bungei Jidai and the Shinkankakuha, often mistranslated as “Neo-Impressionism” but meaning a school of “new sensations”. Britannica traces part of his style to European currents such as Dadaism and Expressionism, alongside older Japanese forms.
His novels are built from short lyrical episodes with abrupt jumps between them, a looseness Britannica compares to renga, the linked verse of fifteenth-century Japan. He wrote many of them in instalments for magazines and kept rewriting: Snow Country took twelve years and several discarded endings, and Thousand Cranes was never finished. The same economy runs through the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, where a story can end after a page.
In his Nobel Lecture he said of Japanese ink painting that its heart lies in what is left out, and his books work the same way, leaving feelings unspoken. His friend Yukio Mishima belongs to the next generation; for another major Japanese novelist of the same era, see the guide to Jun’ichirō Tanizaki.
Frequently asked questions about Yasunari Kawabata’s books
How many books has Yasunari Kawabata written?
Well over a dozen novels and novellas, plus more than 140 very short “palm-of-the-hand” stories. This page covers his 8 key books, from the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories to Beauty and Sadness (1965), and lists 5 more works below them.
What are Yasunari Kawabata’s books in order?
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (written 1923–1972), The Dancing Girl of Izu (1926), Snow Country (1937, final version 1948), Thousand Cranes (1952), The Sound of the Mountain (1954), The Master of Go (1954), The Old Capital (1962) and Beauty and Sadness (1965).
Where should I start with Yasunari Kawabata?
Snow Country, his best-known novel and the first the Nobel committee named. If you want something shorter, read a few of the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.
What is Yasunari Kawabata’s most famous book?
Snow Country, the story of a Tokyo man and the geisha Komako in a hot-spring town in the snow. Kawabata began it in 1935 and completed it in 1948; Edward Seidensticker’s translation appeared in 1956.
Why did Kawabata win the Nobel Prize?
The Swedish Academy gave him the 1968 prize “for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind”, citing Snow Country, Thousand Cranes and The Old Capital. He was the first Japanese writer to receive it, and gave his lecture, “Japan, the Beautiful and Myself”, on 12 December 1968.
Who translated Kawabata into English?
Mainly Edward Seidensticker, who translated Snow Country (1956), Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain (1970) and The Master of Go (1972). Howard Hibbett translated Beauty and Sadness (1975), and J. Martin Holman The Old Capital (1987) and, with Lane Dunlop, the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (1988).
Is The Master of Go a true story?
Largely. It is a semi-fictional account of the real 1938 match between Hon’inbō Shūsai and Minoru Kitani, which lasted almost six months and which Kawabata covered for the Mainichi newspapers. Kitani won by five points; it was Shūsai’s last game.
Have Kawabata’s books been filmed?
Yes. Beauty and Sadness was filmed by Masahiro Shinoda in 1965 and in France by Joy Fleury in 1985, with Charlotte Rampling. Kawabata also worked on the script of the silent film A Page of Madness.
Were Kawabata and Mishima friends?
Yes. Yukio Mishima was a close friend, and his death in 1970 affected Kawabata deeply; his biographer Takeo Okuno reported that Kawabata had nightmares about Mishima for hundreds of nights in a row.
When did Yasunari Kawabata die?
On 16 April 1972 in Zushi, Kanagawa, aged 72, in an apparent suicide, less than four years after the Nobel Prize.
Footnotes
- Yasunari Kawabata — Wikipedia
- Yasunari Kawabata: bibliography — NobelPrize.org
- Kawabata Yasunari — Britannica
- Snow Country — Wikipedia
- The Master of Go — Wikipedia
- Beauty and Sadness (novel) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The heart of the ink painting is in space, abbreviation, what is left undrawn.”
— Yasunari Kawabata, “Japan, the Beautiful and Myself”, Nobel Lecture (1968), translated by Edward Seidensticker
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