Snow Country
Snow Country follows a wealthy man named Shimamura whose interest in a young geisha, Komako, compels him to return again and again to the small village where she lives. Their doomed affair is set against a dramatic mountainous landscape.
Quote:
"It was a stern night landscape. The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. [...] The layers of the Border Range, indistinguishable one from another, cast their heaviness at the skirt of the starry sky in a blackness grave and somber."
Author:
Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) was born in Osaka. His books include Snow Country, Beauty and Sadness, and Thousand Cranes. In 1968, he became the first Japanese author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Published: 1956
Length: 136 pages
Set in: Japan
Translated by: Edward G. Seidensticker