Kaufman, George S(imon) (b. Nov. 16, 1889, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S—d. June 2, 1961, New York, N.Y.) U.S. playwright and director. He was drama critic for The New York Times (1917-30). Known for his caus¬ tic wit and talent for brilliant satire, he wrote many plays in collabora¬ tion with other writers, including Marc Connelly, Morrie Ryskind (1895— 1985), and Edna Ferber. His most memorable collaboration was with Moss Hart, with whom he wrote Once in a Lifetime (1930), You Can’t Take It with You (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939).
Kaunas Vkau-n9s\ Russian Kovno Vkov-no\ City (pop., 2001: 378,943), southern Lithuania. Founded as a fortress in 1030, it passed to Russia in 1795 after the third partition of Poland. It was the capital of independent Lithuania (1920-40), then it was annexed by the Soviet Union. Many historic buildings survive in the Old Town. In addition to being an important industrial centre, it is an educational and cultural cen¬ tre, with polytechnic, medical, and agricultural institutes.
Kaunda \ka-'iin-d9\, Kenneth (David) (b. April 28, 1924, Lubwa, near Chinsali, Northern Rhodesia)
Political leader and first president (1961-91) of Zambia. Kaunda came to prominence in 1959-60 in the movement to stop Britain from establishing a federation of North and South Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
As the first president of independent Zambia, he helped avert a civil war in the late 1960s but ended up impos¬ ing single-party rule. From the 1970s he led other southern African nations in confronting the white-minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. He increased Zambia’s dependence on copper exports and on foreign aid, allowing agriculture, education, and social services to lan¬ guish and poverty and unemploy¬ ment to increase. Several attempted coups in the early 1980s were crushed; in 1990 he was forced to legalize opposition parties, and in 1991 he was voted out of office.
Kautsky \'kaut-ske\, Karl (b. Oct. 16, 1854, Prague, Bohemia—d. Oct. 17, 1938, Amsterdam, Neth.) German Marxist theorist and leader. He was the author of the Erfurt Program adopted by Germany’s Social Democrat Party in 1891, which committed the party to an evolutionary form of Marxism that rejected both the radicalism of Rosa Luxemburg and the evo¬ lutionary socialism of Eduard Bernstein. He founded the Marxist review Neue Zeit in 1883, which he edited in various European cities until 1917, and wrote several books about Marx’s doctrines and about St. Thomas More. He joined the Independent Social Democrats in opposing World War I.
kava or kava kava Vka-v9\ Nonalcoholic, yellow-green, somewhat bitter beverage made from the root of the pepper plant (mainly Piper meth- ysticum ) in most South Pacific islands. It is traditionally consumed in the kava ceremony, which includes the ritual making and drinking of kava and a ceremonial feast. It is taken to relieve stress and anxiety and as a mood elevator.
Kavaratti \,k9-v9-'r9-te\ Island Island of the Lakshadweep union terri¬ tory of India. Located in the Amindivi Islands in the Arabian Sea, off the Malabar Coast of southern India, it is 3.5 mi (5.6 km) long and has a maximum width of 0.75 mi (1.2 km). Its only town, Kavaratti (pop., 2001: 10,119), is the administrative centre of Lakshadweep. The town is noted for the ornately carved pillars and roofs of its mosques.
Kaveri River Vka-v9-re\ or Cauvery River Vko-v9-re\ River, south¬ ern India. Rising in southwestern Karnataka state, it flows southeast some 475 mi (765 km) to enter the Bay of Bengal. East of the city of Mysore it forms the island of Sivasamudram, on either side of which are scenic falls that descend about 320 ft (100 m). The river is the source for an exten¬ sive irrigation system and of hydroelectric power. It is considered one of India’s sacred rivers.
Kaw River See Kansas River
Kawabata \'ka-wa-,ba-ta\ Yasunari (b. June 11, 1899, Osaka, Japan—d. April 16, 1972, Zushi) Japanese novelist. His writing echoes
Fork-tailed bush katydid (Scudderia furcata).
E.S. ROSS
Self-portrait, painting on canvas by Angelica Kauffmann; in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ber-
COURTESY OF THE STAATUCHE MUSEEN PREUSSISCHER KULTURBESITZ GEMALDEGALERIE, BERUN/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK
Kaunda.
CAMERA PRESS
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Kawasaki ► Kazakhstan I 1021
ancient Japanese forms in prose influenced by post-World War I French lit¬ erary currents such as Dadaism (see Dada) and Expressionism. His best- known novel is Snow Country (1948), the story of a forlorn geisha. His other major works (published together in 1952) are A Thousand Cranes and The Sound of the Mountain. The loneliness and preoccupation with death in many of his mature works may derive from his losing all his near relatives while he was young. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. He committed suicide shortly after his friend Mishima Yukio.
Kawasaki \,ka-wa-'sa-ke\ City (pop., 2000 prelim.: 1,249,851) and port, Honshu, Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, between Tokyo and Yokohama. Almost completely destroyed in World War II, it has since been rebuilt. It is a major industrial centre for machinery and chemicals manufactur¬ ing and has large shipbuilding facilities. It is the site of a 12th-century Buddhist temple.
Kawatake Mokuami \ I ka-wa- , ta-ka- l mo-kii- , a-me\ orig. Yoshimura Yoshisaburo (b. March 1, 1816, Edo, Japan—d. Jan. 22, 1893, Tokyo) Japanese playwright. He apprenticed with the kabuki play¬ wright Tsuruya Namboku V and became chief playwright of the Kawarasaki Theatre (1843). He was noted for domestic plays that fea¬ tured ordinary townspeople and picaresque plays that portrayed the lives of thieves. After 1868 he wrote historical plays that emphasized factual accuracy and pioneered the production of domestic plays that described the modernization and Westernization of early Meiji period society. He retired in 1881 but continued to write dance dramas. He wrote more than 360 plays, and his works account for half the current kabuki repertory.
Kay, Alan (b. 1940, Springfield, Mass., U.S.) U.S. computer scientist. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. In 1972 he joined Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center and continued work on the first object- oriented programming language (Smalltalk) for educational applications. He contributed to the development of Ethernet, laser printing, and client- server architecture. He left Xerox in 1983 and became a fellow at Apple Computer in 1984. His design of a graphical user interface was used in Apple’s Macintosh and later in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. He was a fellow at the Walt Disney Co. (1996-2001) and the Hewlett- Packard Co. (from 2002).
Kay, John (b. July 16, 1704, near Bury, Lancashire, Eng.—d. 17647, France) British machinist and engineer. In 1733 he received a patent for a “New Engine or Machine for Opening and Dressing Wool” that incor¬ porated his flying shuttle, an important step toward automatic weaving. Kay’s invention so increased yarn consumption that it spurred the inven¬ tion of spinning machines (including the spinning jenny and spinning mule), but its true importance lay in its adaptation in power looms.
Kay, Ulysses (Simpson) (b. Jan. 7, 1917, Tucson, Ariz., U.S.—d. May 20, 1995, Englewood, N.J.) U.S. composer. A nephew of jazz cor- netist King Oliver, he was an all-around musician from childhood. After graduating from the University of Arizona he went on to study at the Eastman School and with the composer Paul Hindemith at Yale. He taught principally at the City University of New York, earning a reputation as a distinguished teacher. His music—Neoclassical in style but characterized by verve and warmth—received many awards; mostly orchestral or cho¬ ral, it includes five operas and several film and television scores.