Every new foray I make into the works of Yukio Mishima, Japan’s worst-kept literary secret, expands my appreciation for him as a writer of great conviction. He was a man at odds with his time, a vocal critic of post-war […]
Yukio Mishima’s Life For Sale
Motivated, no doubt, by Mishima’s rapidly ascending reputation in the West, publishers in Britain and the United States have finally translated his 1968 novel Life For Sale, bringing it to English-speaking audiences for the first time. It is just the […]
Yukio Mishima’s Confessions Of A Mask
Published in 1949 in Japan but translated into English only in 1958, Confessions Of A Mask, Mishima’s second novel, both captivated and scandalized international audiences. The book is entirely dominated by the opinions and perceptions of Kochan, its narrator-protagonist, who […]
Yukio Mishima’s The Sound Of Waves
Yukio Mishima was unknown to me up until late last year, after which point he has been inescapable. Book-loving friends have pressed him on me; political commentators and polemicists I follow have invoked his name, his writings, or his life. […]