Takahan Ryokan some of the author's personal effects. Takahan Ryokan Takahan Ryokan is an historic ryokan (Japanese inn) located in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The inn is over 800 years old. The inn has an onsen (bath) called "Tamago no Yu" (English: egg-water) that is supplied by natural hot springs with a slight amount of sulfur. The inn has approximately 20,000 annual visitors, many of whom visit to soak in Tamago no Yu. The setting for the book "Snow Country" authored by Yasunari Kawabata is based upon Takahan Ryokan's location. The inn has preserved the room that Kawabata stayed and wrote in
Love and Death in a Hot Country about the Jonestown Massacre, which profoundly affected him. Love and Death in a Hot Country A Hot Country (published as Love and Death in a Hot Country in the US) was the last novel to be written by Shiva Naipaul and also his shortest in length. It was published in 1983. Before its publication, Naipaul had not written a novel in ten years. "A Hot Country" departs from the comic style of his earlier novels "Fireflies" and "The Chip-Chip Gatherers". It is set during an election in the fictional Caribbean country of Cuyama, thought to be based on Guyana where