Kawabata Yasunari
Kawabata Yasunari (川端 康成, June 14, 1899 - April 16, 1972) was a Japanese novelist whose spare, lyrical and subtly shaded prose won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. He became the first Japanese, and third Asian (after Rabindranath Tagore and Shmuel Yosef Agnon), to win the award. His works have had broad and lasting appeal, and are still widely read internationally.
Kawabata was an amateur Go player and a Go reporter. Wrote Meijin (translated as The Master of Go) about the Shusai retirement game. Kawabata's name is ordered in the Western order (Yasunari Kawabata) in the English-language version of the book. He died at his own hands in 1972 and left no note.
Kawabata was inducted to the Nihon Kiin Hall of Fame in 2022, 50 years after his death.