Alongside the tale of the Izu dancer, Kawabata accumulated much of his earliest literary capital from the corpses of his own family. Texts accompanying the story -- ''Diary of My Sixteenth Year,'' ''Oil,'' ''The Master of Funerals'' and ''Gathering Ashes'' -- blend autobiography, reminiscence and fiction. All are derived from his experience of losing every member of his immediate family by the time he was 14.