Yasunari Kawabata ( 14 June 1899 â `` 16 April 1972 ) Japanese 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 . 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 .