ABSTRACT
Most of Kawabata's earliest writings, from the Diary of a Sixteen-Year-Old to the Dancing Girl of Izu - that is, from about 1914 to 1926 - easily fall within the mainstream Japanese literary tradition of autobiographical writing in a lyrical mode though, as we have seen, some differ considerably from others in mood and style. Since these were the works which established him quickly as an important up-and-coming writer, no doubt it would have been expedient for him to go on indefinitely writing in this mode. At least one would not have expected him to break away from it immediately after scoring the stunning popular success of Izu. But one mark of Kawabata's stature as a writer is that he was never content merely to repeat his successes; even into his old age, he never lost his restless desire to grow as an artist - and he was always prepared for the struggle and the risk involved in developing a new mode of writing. Thus the bold experiments he attempted after Izu were not merely, as some seem to think, the product of youthful uncertainty or even foolhardiness; rather they were very much in character - and, as a matter of fact, he would repeat this kind of surprise 'change of course' several times again later in his career.
