Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (谷崎 潤一郎 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, 24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965) was a Japanese author, one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki. Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family Continue reading «Famous Birthdays Today: 1886 – Junichiro Tanizaki, Japan, writer (Snow Dusting).»

Osamu Dazai (June 19, 1909 – June 13, 1948) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. Dazai was born Shūji Tsushima, the eighth surviving child of a wealthy landowner in Kanagi, a remote corner of Japan at the northern tip of Tōhoku in Aomori Prefecture. His father was a member of Continue reading «Famous Birthdays Today: 1909 – Osamu Dazai, Japan, novelist.»

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read. Born in Osaka, Japan, into a well-established doctor’s family, Yasunari was orphaned when he Continue reading «Famous Birthdays Today: 1899 – Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, novelist (Thousand Cranes).»