Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist and short story writer Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成, Kawabata Yasunari, 11 June 1899 – 16 April 1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.