One narrator of a short story by this writer is nicknamed "Mr. Mortician" and ritually throws salt on himself after the titular events; that character is a frequenter of funerals like the protagonist of his other story, Gathering Ashes.
This author describes how Dr. Rush went from speaking English to French to Italian as his fever progressed in the story A Prayer in the Mother Tongue. One narrator of a short story by this writer is nicknamed "Mr. Mortician" and ritually throws salt on himself after the titular events; that character is a frequenter of funerals like the protagonist of his other story, Gathering Ashes. The narrator of another his short stories laments how he has to "bring the urinal" and help his grandfather pee on May 4th in a story similar to his work, Oil.  Besides writing (*) Diary of My Sixteenth Year, this writer penned a story where the narrator travels with "a troupe of itinerant performers", including the titular childhood entertainer from "the harbor town of Habu on Oshima". The author of The Master of Funerals and extremely short works in the vein of The Money Road, for 10 points, name this Japanese author of The Dancing Girl of Izu and various Palm of Hand Stories.
This author describes how Dr. Rush went from speaking English to French to Italian as his fever progressed in the story A Prayer in the Mother Tongue.
{Yasunari Kawabata} [or {Kawabata Yasunari}]