UNESCO collection of representative works: Japanese series

"Japan's preeminent modern novelist, Natsume Sôseki (1867-1916), may be better known for his works of fiction Kokoro, Botchan, and I Am a Cat, than for his last novel, Meian, uncompleted at his death, which remains something of an enigma -- a neglected masterpiece. A simple plot summary doesn't do it justice: the marriage of Tsuda and O-Nobu is threatened when Kobayashi and others begin dropping hints about another woman. Tsuda departs on a trip to rendezvous with the woman in question, Kiyoko, his former fiancée. The novel is a study of human character, a marriage tested, and what it means to be an individual in the modern world." -- Amazon.com

A young writer, the second son of a wealthy family, is beset by emotional crises of self-doubts which are increased by the discovery of his mother's infidelity, his child's death, and his wife's affairs.

Snow Country (雪国, Yukiguni) is a novel by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel is considered a classic work of Japanese literature and was among the three novels the Nobel Committee cited in 1968, when Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.