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Reading lists

Where to start reading Yukio Mishima’s books

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6 Japanese classics to read in Spring

And Other Stories

Voices of the Fallen Heroes

'These stories are waves of fury, desire and delicious cruelty, always kissed by beauty and death' Mariana Enríquez 
 
A new selection of lyrically haunting 1960s short stories, from a Japanese literary icon 
 
A writer is seized by apocalyptic visions, a trio of beatniks dance to modern jazz in the ruins of an abandoned church, and a séance brings forth the reproachful spirits of the military dead. 
 
In Voices of the Fallen Heroes, stark autobiography contrasts with pure horror, and the tenderness of first love cedes to obsession, heartbreak and deathly beauty. In one tale, Mishima recounts the true story of the time a deranged fan broke into his home at dawn. Elsewhere, a beautiful youth achieves eternal life through violent murder, and an ill-matched couple seal their fate with a pack of cards, tangled in the web of time and unfulfilled desire. 
 
Available in English for the first time, and carefully selected by expert translators, these captivating stories are the perfect introduction to Mishima's work, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Arresting ... Here, in brutal, brilliant prose, we see a vivid manifestation of Mishima’s obsession with slaughter as a form of art, one that distils his hallmark preoccupations of death and beauty into a singularly intense poetic expression ... what this fine collection consistently demonstrates is how fundamentally, disturbingly, enduringly relevant Mishima’s writing remains

Mesmerising... wonderfully realised in English... Each one of the stories merits its inclusion in this collection, but two in particular stand out as masterpieces. 'The Flower Hat' is a miracle of compressed tension and potent socio-political discourse... the title story 'Voices of the Fallen Heroes' presents Mishima's art at its most mesmerising, complex and formidable

In the turbulent sea of the master Yukio Mishima's literature, these stories are waves of fury, desire and delicious cruelty, always kissed by beauty and death. The ghosts and the violence that haunted his last decade of life also offer a glimpse of post-war Japan, a country full of trauma and grief. He wrote always in a frenzy but his style is so elegant and detailed that it seems, and is, timeless. I loved every page and was shaken by the complexity and darkness of these stories

All of Yukio Mishima is on display in these fourteen short stories — the literary muscle of one of Japan’s greatest ever writers flushed and flexed on every page: all of his phenomenal powers of description; all of the celebrated tenderness and acuity of his writing; all of the man’s gleeful irreverence and originality. Here, too, are the signs of disturbance — of a reactionary politics and a fascination with violence that would lead to his spectacular demise. An important and timely collection of stories by a writer who casts a long shadow across the present

One of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century

He can be funny, even hilarious, but he is also capable of plunging into the dark psychic depths achieved by Hitchcock

A writer is seized by apocalyptic visions, a trio of beatniks dance to modern jazz in the ruins of an abandoned church, and a séance brings forth the reproachful spirits of the military dead. 
 
In Voices of the Fallen Heroes, stark autobiography contrasts with pure horror, and the tenderness of first love cedes to obsession, heartbreak and deathly beauty. In one tale, Mishima recounts the true story of the time a deranged fan broke into his home at dawn. Elsewhere, a beautiful youth achieves eternal life through violent murder, and an ill-matched couple seal their fate with a pack of cards, tangled in the web of time and unfulfilled desire. 
 
Available in English for the first time, and carefully selected by expert translators, these captivating stories are the perfect introduction to Mishima's work, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

The Temple of Dawn

The four novels remain one of the outstanding works of 20th-Century literature and a summary of the author's life and work... Like the Divine Comedy and Remembrance of Things Past, "The Sea of Fertility" gives the reader the sensation of being carried to a great height...but Mishima abandons the reader at the edge of the precipice, revealing the abyss beneath the degraded life of the post-war world

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five. 
 
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45.

Mishima&rsquo;s literary powers are on full display in his penultimate novel, a meditation on reincarnation and Buddhist philosophy. 
 
Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business. He is granted an audience with a young Thai princess known as 'Moonlight', an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. Convinced she is a reincarnated spirit, he undertakes a long, arduous pilgrimage to the holy places of India. There he encounters her again. But the princess has become one more embodiment of all that Honda cannot possess. 
 
'An elegy to the loss of pureness in the Japanese national spirit' Japan Times

Runaway Horses

In Runaway Horses Mishima writes of a desire to destroy or subvert beauty at its height, thus strengthening its appeal and preventing its slow decay

One of the great writers of the twentieth century

Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved

This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy

Mishima succeeded, unlike any other writer before him, in creating a glittering alloy of Eastern and Western traditions, classical and contemporary forms

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

The second book in Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetraology - this is a story of political violence, traditional samurai values and nihilism. 
 
Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor's rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart. 
 
'Runaway Horses is disturbing material, also a harbinger of Mishima's own act of 'patriotic' self-slaughter... Strange, elegant, erotic' Guardian

The Decay of the Angel

The four novels remain one of the outstanding works of twentieth-century literature and a summary of the author's life and work

Yukio Mishima was, in life as in death, and in fiction especially, a master of gorgeous, and perverse surprises

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five. 
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45.

The dramatic climax of The Sea of Fertility tetraology. 
 
It is the 1960s and Honda, now an aged and wealthy man, discovers and adopts a sixteen-year-old orphan, Toru. Honda believes that the boy is the reincarnation of the tragic protagonists of the three previous novels, each of whom died at the age of twenty. Honda raises and educates the boy, he makes him his heir, and watches him, waiting. But Toru is also watching Honda... 
 
'A surpassingly chilling, subtle and original novel' New York Times 
 
'Mishima's ritualistic suicide in 1970 will always overshadow his work, but his dark saga of 20th-century Japan is mesmerising' Guardian

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

A dark vision...a beautiful, disturbing novel

Mishima writes with a fury that seldom flags

Glitters with images of beauty and destruction, cruelty and sacrifice, dedication and betrayal

I adore Mishima's prose and vivid descriptions. They pull me out of my daily reality

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

This is Mishima's novel about the pressure of living an idealised life. It tells a fictionalised account of real events - the lonely acolyte who destroyed a famous Kyoto temple. 
 
Mizoguchi grows up a lonely boy in a poor family, a hopeless and frustrated stutterer. Only tales of the beauty of a famous temple in Kyoto, told by his dying father, sustain him. Taunted by his schoolmates, he eventually escapes to become an acolyte at the temple. But there, witness to acts of callous violence and terrified by the bombing of the war, Mizoguchi develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's preservation - until the beauty of the place itself starts to feel like his deadliest enemy. 
 
This powerful story of sacrifice and unattainable ideals brings together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religion and national history to dazzling effect. 
 
'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times

The Sound of Waves

The beauty of Mishima's prose and the vibrant evocation of island life elevate this short novel far beyond its constituent parts

A work of art...altogether a joyous and lovely thing

Of such classic design its action might take place at any point across a thousand years

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

In a remote fishing village in Japan, two very different young people fall in love. 
 
Shinji is a hard-working fisherman, Hatsue is the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. She is also a diver for pearls and seaweed with the other women of the community. Shinji is entranced at the sight of Hatsue in the twilight on the beach and a relationship develops via secret notes and meetings. But when the villagers&rsquo; gossip threatens to divide them permanently, Shinji must risk his life to prove his worth. 
 
&lsquo;A work of art...altogether a joyous and lovely thing&rsquo; New York Times 
 
&lsquo;A sunny masterpiece&rsquo; Los Angeles Times

Thirst for Love

Thirst for Love contains all of the elements that make Mishima a compelling, disturbing writer

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

Etsuko is a trapped woman who lays traps for others... 
 
After the early death of her philandering husband, Etsuko moves into her father-in-law's house, where she numbly submits to the old man's advances. Meanwhile she develops feelings for the handsome eighteen-year-old servant Saburo. Tormented by his indifference, yet invigorated by her desire, she makes one last, catastrophic bid for his attention. 
 
'A sensuous, absorbing study of overriding obsession' Kirkus 
 
'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times

After the Banquet

Kazu is the biggest and most profound thing Mishima has done so far in an already distinguished career

His most novelistic work, with a degree of earthiness and warmth rare in his fiction

Direct yet allusive, poetic...an amazing feat

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness - then she falls in love. 
 
The man is one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, and she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit. Eventually Kazu must choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. After the Banquet is a magnificent portrait of political and domestic warfare and love in later life. 
 
'An exquisitely paced high comedy at once characterized by humor and restraint...features a magnificently ebullient heroine as she embarks upon one more adventure in love' Kirkus 
 
&lsquo;[Mishima's] most novelistic work, with a degree of earthiness and warmth rare in his fiction&rsquo; New York Times

The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Vintage Quarterbound Classics

Noboru spies on his widowed mother, Fusako Kuroda, as she begins a relationship with Ryuji Tsukazaki, a merchant sailor he idolises as a hero. 
 
Set in post-war Yokohama, Japan, in the late 1950s, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace from the Sea follows thirteen-year-old Noboru and a secret gang of schoolboys who have sworn to reject the adult world as sentimental and corrupt. Under the cold authority of their leader, they train themselves in what they call ‘objectivity,’ suppressing emotion in favour of ruthless judgement. 
 
When Ryuji abandons the sea to pursue a settled life with Fusako, Noboru and the boys see this not as love, but as weakness. The sailor they once revered becomes, in their eyes, a traitor to heroic masculinity. Their disillusionment curdles into a calculated plan to restore what they believe is honour. 
 
As twentieth-century Japanese historical fiction grounded in the social aftermath of the Second World War, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace from the Sea builds towards an act of chilling violence, exposing adolescent absolutism, misogyny, and the fragile myth of male heroism. 
 
‘Mishima’s greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century’ The Times

Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century

Explores the viciousness that lies beneath what we imagine to be innocence

Told with Mishima's fierce attention to naturalistic detail, the grisly tale becomes painfully convincing and yields a richness of psychological and mythic truth

Coolly exact with his characters and their honourable motives. His aim is to make the destruction of the sailor by his love seem as inevitable as the ocean

Mishima's imagery is as artful as a Japanese flower arrangement

A tale of youth and warped masculinity, this is the suspenseful, lyrical and page-turning Japanese classic. 
 
A band of thirteen-year-old boys reject the stupidity of the adult world. They decide it is illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call ‘objectivity’. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship’s officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first, but it is not long before they conclude that he is, in fact, soft and romantic. They regard this disillusionment as an act of betrayal on his part – and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying. 
 
‘Mishima’s greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century’ The Times 
 
TRANSLATED BY JOHN NATHAN

Death in Midsummer

Ten tales of loss and longing, from one one Japan's greatest writers 
 
It was the height of summer, and there was anger in the rays of the sun 
 
A summer holiday that turns to tragedy; a moonlit journey to fulfil a wish; a couple’s unusual way of making a living; a young lieutenant who ends his life; a night of infidelities. This selection contains nine short stories and one modern Noh play by one of Japan’s greatest writers. Selected by Mishima himself for translation, they are by turns tender and delicate, ironic and shocking, showing the strange pull between duty and desire, death and beauty. 
 
‘He can be funny, even hilarious, but he is also capable of plunging into the dark psychic depths achieved by Hitchcock’ New York Times Book Review 
 
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, Ivan Morris, Donald Keene and Geoffrey W. Sargent

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of the Japan's most important writers. His books broke social boundaries and taboos at a time when Japan found itself in a state of rapid social change. His interests, besides writing, included body-building, acting and practising as a Samurai. In 1970 he attempted to start a military coup, which failed. Upon realizing this, Mishima performed seppuku, a ritual suicide, upon himself. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times.

Bringing together Yukio Mishima's finest stories, this selection shows his extraordinary ability to depict a wide variety of human beings in moments of significance. A moonlit journey to fulfil a wish; a mother lost in mourning; a night of infidelity; and a young lieutenant who ends his life. Filled with rich description and luxurious beauty, these hauntingly beautiful short stories from one of Japan's greatest writers show the pull between duty and desire, ecstasy and death. 
 
In the title story, 'Death in Midsummer', which is set at a beach resort, a triple tragedy becomes a cloud of doom that requires exorcising. In another, 'Patriotism', a young army officer and his wife choose a way of vindicating their belief in ancient values that is as violent as it is traditional; it prefigured his own death by seppuku in November 1970. There is a story in which the sad truth of the relationship between a businessman and his former mistress is revealed through a suggestion of the unknown, and another in which a working-class couple, touching in their simple love for each other, pursue financial security by rather shocking means.

The Frolic of the Beasts

The gripping story of an affair gone horribly wrong, from one of Japan's greatest twentieth-century writers 
 
Koji, a young student, has fallen hopelessly in love with the beautiful, enigmatic Yuko. But she is married to the literary critic and serial philanderer Ippei. Tormented by desire and anger, Koji is driven to an act of violence that will bind this strange, terrible love triangle together for the rest of their lives. A starkly compelling story of lust, guilt and punishment, The Frolic of the Beasts explores the masks we wear in life, and what happens when they slip. 
 
'One of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century' New Yorker

This morose little gem boasts its share of sensuous depravity

Mishima was one of literature's great romantics, a tragedian with a heroic sensibility, an intellectual, an esthete, a man steeped in Western letters who toward the end of his life became a militant Japanese nationalist

A sexually and psychologically complex novel... in a honed translation by Andrew Clare

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of the Japan's most important writers. His books broke social boundaries and taboos at a time when Japan found itself in a state of rapid social change. His interests, besides writing, included body-building, acting and practising as a Samurai. In 1970 he attempted to start a military coup, which failed. Upon realizing this, Mishima performed seppuku, a ritual suicide, upon himself. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature three times.

Introducing Penguin Japanese Classics: a collection of some of Japan's most celebrated and ground-breaking 20th century writers, with covers inspired by Japanese art and design. Taking us from a sun-drenched affair in a seaside town to an underground 'ark' full of shadows and eccentrics, with stops at mountains of skulls, lonely apartments and boarding school dormitories, this series is perfect for new and long-time readers of Japanese literature. 
 
Koji, a young student, has fallen hopelessly in love with the beautiful, enigmatic Yuko. But she is married to the literary critic and serial philanderer Ippei. Tormented by desire and anger, Koji is driven to an act of violence that will bind this strange, terrible love triangle together for the rest of their lives. A starkly compelling story of lust, guilt and punishment, The Frolic of the Beasts explores the masks we wear in life, and what happens when they slip. 
 
'One of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century' - New Yorker 
 
Translated by Andrew Clare

Beautiful Star

'Interplanetary, quite extraordinary . . . awash with dark humour and scenes of intense beauty' Financial Times 
 
'One of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century' New Yorker 
 
Beautiful Star is a 1962 tale of family, love, nuclear war and UFOs, and was considered by Mishima to be one of his very best books. 
 
Translated into English for the first time, this atmospheric black comedy tells the story of the Osugi family, who come to the sudden realization that each of them hails from a different planet: Father from Mars, mother from Jupiter, son from Mercury and daughter from Venus. This extra-terrestrial knowledge brings them closer together, and convinces them that they have a mission: to find others of their kind, and save humanity from the imminent threat of the atomic bomb...

Strikingly different... Stephen Dodd's translation captures Mishima's dark humour, succinct style and dry wit

A brilliant black comedy following the Osugi family, who come to the understanding that they are each from a different planet. This new knowledge strengthens their bond while solidifying a mission: to seek others of their kind and save humanity from the looming threat of the atomic bomb. This is an insightful, moving read. Mishima deserves a wider readership

Set in the early 1960s, this bonkers story of aliens trying to save mankind from nuclear war is told from the perspective of one family, all of whom come from a different planet. It's a biting social satire that's utterly transporting

Ordinary people harbour the grandest (and most terrible) thoughts in a cosmological fable as disconcerting as it is funny: behind the simplest actions lie visions of worlds in collision

The Oscar Wilde of Japan ... one of Japan's great novelists ... his subtlety, warmth and wit shine through

A mixture of humour, high literary seriousness and flying saucers ... remarkable

Among Japan's most celebrated post-war authors

Interplanetary, quite extraordinary ... a fusion of sci-fi and social satire with great pathos, awash with dark humour and scenes of intense beauty ... Mishima blends the sublime and ridiculous in provocative and surprising ways ... a fresh and limpid translation

Moves from vividly described scenes of ordinary human life and the beauties of the natural world to arguments about human nature and whether peace is possible this side of death

Its humour may be the book's most brilliant trait ... intense and earnest, the novel contains plenty of Mishima's spectacular writing ... an impressive accomplishment by Dodd in conveying a sense of import, sophistication and mastery of prose

A delightfully strange, absorbing work. Full of humour and insight. Highly recommended

The wunderkind of the Japanese literary world ... an extraordinary literary talent

The Osugi family have come to a realization. Each of them hails from a different planet. Father from Mars, mother from Jupiter, son from Mercury and daughter from Venus. Already seen as oddballs in their small Japanese town in the 1960s, this extra-terrestrial knowledge brings them closer together; they climb mountains to wait for UFOs, study at home together and regard their human neighbours with a kindly benevolence. 
 
But Father, Juichiro, is worried about the bomb. He writes letters to Khrushchev, trying to warn everyone he can of the terrible threat. After all, humans may be terribly flawed, but aren't they worth saving? He sends out a coded message in the newspaper to find other aliens. But there are other extra-terrestrials out there, ones who do not look so kindly on the flaws and foibles of humans. And a charming young man, who claims to be from Venus too, tempts daughter Akiko away from the family . . .

Life for Sale

'The best book I've read this year ... darkly comedic and full of tension and surprise' Marina Abramovic 
 
'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.' 
 
When Hanio Yamada realises the future holds little of worth to him, he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper, thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits. A world of murderous mobsters, hidden cameras, a vampire woman, poisoned carrots, code-breaking, a hopeless junkie heiress and makeshift explosives reveals itself to the unwitting hero. Is there nothing he can do to stop it? Resolving to follow the orders of his would-be purchasers, he comes to understand what life is worth, and whether we can indeed name our price.

Yields a rare glimpse of the pulp-fiction flipside that partnered the rhapsodic and mystical Mishima... grotesque, melodramatic, spectacular, utterly silly

It's funny and horrific and curious and thoroughly entertaining and should win Mishima a new generation of fans

There is a place in life for the exhilarating, surreal and sometimes downright silly. This novel ticks all the boxes

Succeeds in capturing vividly the bathos of the self-pitying modern nihilist... the absurdity of life is conveyed through the tropes of pulp fiction and manga comics

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of Japan's most important writers. His books broke social boundaries and taboos at a time when Japan found itself in a state of rapid social change. His interests, besides writing, included body-building, acting and practising as a Samurai. In 1970 he attempted to start a military coup, which failed. Upon realizing this, Mishima performed seppuku, a ritual suicide, upon himself. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times.

'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.' 
 
When Hanio Yamada realizes the future holds nothing of worth to him, he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper, thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits. 
 
A world of revenge, murderous mobsters, hidden cameras, a vampire woman, poisonous carrots, espionage and code-breaking, a junkie heiress, home-made explosives and decoys reveals itself to the unwitting Hanio. Is there anything he can do to stop it?

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS – following on from the success of Vintage Russian Classics and European Classics, these are covetable new editions of the best Japanese writers on the Vintage list

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor – the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless short stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he acted. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves; Enjo, which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst For Love and the short-story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. 
 
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

Star

A haunting novella of fame and disillusionment by a Japanese literary icon 
 
All eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention. They would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells "action"; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions. 
 
Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film Afraid to Die, this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams as the absurdity of his existence comes sharply into focus. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there ever any escape from how we are seen by others?

A stunning addition to the oeuvre of one of postwar Japan's greatest storytellers

A startlingly modern, hypervisual jewel; it could be a really interesting movie. It was mesmerizing, seeming to fall in my hands from an alternative sky.

All eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention. They would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells "action"; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions. 
 
Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film Afraid to Die, this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams as the absurdity of his existence comes sharply into focus. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there ever any escape from how we are seen by others?

Confessions of a Mask

'There is in this world a kind of desire like stinging pain' 
 
A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. He imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in the painting that obsesses him. Over and over again, each night in his private fantasies, the objects of his lust are tortured, killed and maimed. But, in the rigid world of imperial wartime Japan there is no place for such transgressive desires. He must wear a false mask and hide his true nature, whatever the cost. 
 
'A terrific and astringent work of beauty' The Times Literary Supplement 
 
'Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair' Christopher Isherwood 
 
'Never has a "confession" been freer from self-pity' Sunday Times

Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair

Never has a "confession" been freer from self-pity and emotional over-indulgence

A terrific and astringent work of beauty... a work of art

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of the Japan's most important writers. His books broke social boundaries and taboos at a time when Japan found itself in a state of rapid social change. His interests besides writing included body-building, acting, and practising as a Samurai. In 1970 he attempted to start a military coup, which failed. Upon realising this, Mishima performed seppuku, a ritual suicide, upon himself. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature three times. 
 
His major novels include Confessions of a Mask, Forbidden Colours (also a Penguin Modern Classic), The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea and the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility: Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn and The Decay of the Angel.

A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Each night he imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in Guido Reni's painting; the objects of our hero's desire are tortured, killed and maimed, over and over again each night in his private fantasies. He must hide his lust from a homophobic and stiflingly conventional Japan. Self-loathing and desperate, he begins acting out a love affair with the sister of a school friend, while grappling with his hidden desires under the shadow of a Japan under threat from World War Two.

Forbidden Colours

A Japenese masterpiece, reissued in Modern Classics

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) is considered by many critics as the most important Japanese novelist of the 20th century. Mishima's works include 40 novels, poetry, essays, and modern Kabuki and Noh dramas. He was three times nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature. Among his masterpieces is The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956). The tetralogy The Sea of Fertility (1965-70) is regarded by many as Mishima's most lasting achievement.

Written when Mishima was only twentysix, Forbidden Colors is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love. As in Mann's Death in Venice, the older man's longing for the beauty of youth is associated with aestheticism and death.

The Temple Of The Golden Pavilion

Generally regarded both in Japan and in the West as his most successful novel, THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION brings together all Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religious life and the history of his own nation. Based on actual incident, the burning of a celebrated temple, the novel is both a vivid narrative and a meditation on the state of Japan in the post-war period.

The Adventures of Natsuko

Natsuko Matsuura is headstrong, beautiful and determined to live a life beyond the ordinary. Disappointed again and again by the drearily conventional men on the Tokyo dating scene, she decides to renounce marriage altogether and join a convent in faraway Hokkaido. Setting off with her grandmother, mother and aunt, she readies herself for a nun’s life. But her journey is derailed when she meets Tsuyoshi Ida, a fiery young man with sparkling eyes and a score to settle; with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, he’s tracking a bear through the forests of Hokkaido, seeking vengeance for the death of his former girlfriend. Thinking she may at last have met a man who shares her sense of adventure, Natsuko flees her anxious guardians and joins the hunt, with more than a bear in her sights . . . 
 
Written in 1951 and translated into English for the very first time, The Adventures of Natsuko shows Mishima at his comic best, in an anti-fairy tale for the modern era.

Yukio Mishima

Michael Gallagher

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of Japan’s aristocracy is breached for the first time. 
 
Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family – members of the waning aristocracy – but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko. His devoted friend Honda watches from the sidelines. It is only when Satoko becomes engaged to a royal prince that Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion. 
 
‘An austere love story, probably my favourite of his novels’ 
David Mitchel 
 
VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - nine masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions. 
 
TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL GALLAGHER

Yukio Mishima

Books by Yukio Mishima

Articles featuring Yukio Mishima

Where to start reading Yukio Mishima’s books

6 Japanese classics to read in Spring

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