Snow Country is a tale of love affair between a Tokyo artist Shimamura and a provincial geisha. The story takes place in the remote hot spring town of Yuzawa. And the title “Snow country”, originally Yuki Guni, comes from the place where the story happens, where Shimamura arrives in a train coming through a long tunnel under the border of mountains between Gunma and Niigata. Sitting at the foot of mountains, on the north side, this region receives a huge amount of snow in winter because of the northern winds coming across the Sea of Japan. The snow reaches four to five meters in depths, sometimes isolating the towns and villages in the region from others. The lonely atmosphere suggested by the title is infused throughout the book.

Snow Country is one of the three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in awarding Yasunari Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. And it is a great Japanese style love story to read in the winter season, in which you can get an extremely shower of exotic and delicate beauty Kawabata would present to you, being a representative of Japanese style and features.

《雪国》讲述一个东京艺术家岛村和一个山村艺妓之间的爱情故事,故事发生在遥远的温泉 小镇汤泽。书名“雪国”最初叫做“Yuki Guni”,整个故事就是在这里发生的,主人公岛村乘坐 火车在群马和新泄县之间的山界下,穿过长长的隧道才来到雪国。这是一个地处群山脚下的 北国山村,冬天北风会越过日本海来到这里,带来大量的积雪。积雪的深度可达4到5米,有 时甚至可以让这里的小镇和村庄都与世隔绝。“雪国”所暗示的冷寂氛围弥漫在整个故事中。

1968年,川端康成正是凭借《雪国》和其他两部小说获得了诺贝尔文学奖。这部具有浓郁日 式风格和特点的爱情故事非常适合在冬季里阅读,跟着川端康成去感受书中的异国风情和细 腻之美吧。