Yasunari Kawabata

In this episode, we're taking a look at Yasunari Kawabata's life and work.

As we tell his story, we'll ask ourselves two big questions. 

• Is Kawabata really a traditionalist? 
• And what is up with the way he writes about adolescent girls?

cw: author suicide, problematic imagery about adolescent girls

Buy The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories (translated by J. Martin Holman) on Bookshop to support RJL. 

Join the RJL Patreon to support RJL and for nine minutes of bonus content— including comparisons between Noh plays and Kawabata's writing, thoughts about queer readings of two Kawabata stories, and skepticism about Donald Keene's description of Keene as "a master of feminine psychology".

Transcript, notes and sources at the podcast episode website.

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