Matsuei. 1930s Japan, public domain image.

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), Japanese novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. His melancholic lyricism echoes an ancient Japanese literary tradition in the modern idiom. The sense of loneliness and preoccupation with death that permeates much of Kawabata’s mature writing possibly derives from the loneliness of his childhood (he was orphaned early and lost all near relatives while still in his youth). He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1924 and made his entrance into the literary world with the semiautobiographical Izu no odoriko (1926; The Izu Dancer). It appeared in the journal Bungei jidai (“The Artistic Age”), which he founded with the writer Yokomitsu Riichi; this journal became the organ of the Neosensualist group with which Kawabata was early associated.

Geisha are traditional, female Japanese entertainers of the "Flower and Willow World", shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Geisha skills include performing various ancient Japanese arts regarding music, song, dance, tea ceremony, calligraphy, flower arranging, poetry and the art of conversation. In Japan, geisha are the ultimate hostess and class of entertainment. Geisha are hailed as the very icons of Japanese social grace and etiquette. They have existed for over 400 years, yet their elegant appearance has remained timeless and unchanged in the present world.