Professor Al Gho

Author's name: Yasunari Kawabata Publisher: Al-Ahliya for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2017 Brief about the book: Yasunari Kawabata considered this novel "the purest and most beautiful" work he wrote in his life, he called it "a faithful account novel," and used the expression Shosetsu that goes beyond the concept of the novel in its known sense to a more flexible, generous, and universal form, taking some of the richness and comprehensiveness of autobiography and the warmth of recording memory in an artistic form. Kawabata describes in this mournful and sad work a decisive "Go" match that actually took place in 1938, which he attended himself and covered for the Mainichi newspaper. Kawabata declared after the end of World War II in 1945 that he would only write comprehensive universal works from then on, and if the novel before us is one of his best models and most beloved to him—and the most dangerous of his works, as his lifelong friend novelist Yukio Mishima saw it—it concludes his arduous literary journey and surprises its reader and scholar with its technical features (the structure of time, document, and facts), its complex stylistic approach (mixing poetic verse with journalistic language), and its dynamic content (the tragic difference in the sensitivity of different generations to the meaning of authenticity and modernity).