The Sound of the Mountain (National Book Award Winner) by Yasunari Kawabata

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The Sound of the Mountain (National Book Award Winner) by Yasunari Kawabata

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The Sound of the Mountain (National Book Award Winner) by Yasunari Kawabata

From the Nobel Prize-winning writer and acclaimed author of Snow Country comes a beautiful rendering of the predicament of old age--about an elderly Tokyo businessman who must face the failures of his memory and the sudden upsurges of passion that illuminate the end of a life. 

"A rich, complicated novel.... Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata's is the closest to poetry." --The New York Times Book Review

By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he associates the distant rumble he hears from the nearby mountain with the sounds of death. In between are the complex relationships that were once the foundations of Shingo's life: his trying wife; his philandering son; and his beautiful daughter-in-law, who inspires in him both pity and the stirrings of desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments, Kawabata has crafted a novel that is a powerful, serenely observed meditation on the relentless march of time.

Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker

Yasunari Kawabata was born in the city of Osaka in the year 1899. He was the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. He published his first pieces while still in high school and graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1924, making him one of Japan's most renowned novelists. The Izu Dancer, a short story he initially published in 1925, was reprinted in The Atlantic Monthly in 1955. Snow Country (1956), which consolidated Kawabata's status as one of the leading voices of his period, as well as Thousand Cranes (1959), The Sound of the Mountain (1970), The Master of Go (1972), and Beauty and Sorrow (1975), cemented his reputation as one of the preeminent voices of his time.

He was the chairman of the People's Environmental Network (P.E.N.). He was a member of the Japan Club for long years and was awarded the Goethe-medal in Frankfurt in 1959. In 1972, Kawabata passed away.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780679762645
ISBN 10 0679762647
Title The Sound of the Mountain (National Book Award Winner)
Author Yasunari Kawabata
Series Vintage International
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Random House USA Inc
Year published 1996-05-28
Number of pages 288
Prizes Winner of Nobel Prize 1968
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.