Land of Snow | Yasunari Kawabata

"Country of Snow" is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1968. It was translated into Arabic by novelist Latifa Al-Dulaimi, who also provided an introduction about Kawabata Yasunari’s life, works, and status in Japan. Al-Dulaimi says: "Kawabata, the contemplative, was a sensuous inclined person with a language carved precisely and economically. He lived immersed in solitude and writing, and hated fame, which he always avoided while living in his small studio away from others’ curiosity and their hell." Regarding his novel "Country of Snow," she states: "In the novel, the hero Shimamura is interested in Western ballet, but his interest, as we understand, takes on the superficial obsession that does not touch the depths of the soul. The author confirms that his hero will close his eyes by choice if he is made to witness a Western ballet performance, satisfied with the visions his imagination has drawn about that art (...) Kawabata writes with unparalleled economy and unique elegance, with a conscious use of suggestive words, reflecting his personality in both its sensory and contemplative aspects across his entire literary work..." Western critics considered "Country of Snow" to achieve a fusion between the style of haiku and narrative possibility. The novel talks about a wealthy protagonist completely incapable of love, and a heroine, a Gisha girl working at a hot spring resort, pure and innocent in the midst of corruption. We soon see her fall before everyone’s eyes. Both try to love, but love never comes to them together; the closer they get, the more they distance and isolate from each other. The hero, Shimamura, built his character as half cynical and sarcastic, with a half-world of dreams and desires, preoccupied with the little that the body and blood suggest. Shimamura is an expert in Western ballet, but he has never attended a ballet performance in his life, and we might not be exaggerating if we doubt he would close his eyes if a ballet show was presented before him. Shimamura’s love for Komako is doomed to failure from the start; he is attracted to Yuko through Komako, the emotional, eccentric girl who flashes in Shimamura’s imagination like a shining light in the darkness of the mountains. Ultimately, the novel is a masterpiece of Kawabata, from which the love story of Shimamura emerges as a symbol of complete ingratitude in love. The character of the woman, Komako, and the ethereal beauty of the country of snow, are themes that fit with the haiku-like essence, greatly emphasizing that ingratitude. Ultimately, the success of the novel itself affirms or proves the human nature that has been denied and ungrateful.