Mishima Yukio Book order

A beautiful hardback edition of a great Japanese classic, beautiful, lyrical and deeply ominous.A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as 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 TimesVINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful

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 . . .

'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.

A haunting novella of fame and disillusionment by a Japanese literary iconAll 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?

Set in rural Japan shortly after World War II, The Frolic of the Beasts tells the story of a strange and utterly absorbing love triangle between a former university student, Koji; his would-be mentor, the eminent literary critic Ippei Kusakado; and Ippei's beautiful, enigmatic wife, Yuko. When brought face-to-face with one of Ippei's many marital indiscretions, Koji finds his growing desire for Yuko compels him to action in a way that changes all three of their lives profoundly. Originally published in 1961 and now available in English for the first time, The Frolic of the Beasts is a haunting examination of the various guises we assume throughout our lives, and a tale of psychological self-entrapment, seduction, and violence.

After witnessing his mother with another man while his father was dying, Mizoguchi becomes a stutterer and faces bullying at school. Feeling isolated, he finds solace as an acolyte at a renowned temple in Kyoto, where he becomes deeply obsessed with its beauty.

One of the most powerful short stories ever written, this work discusses the dynamics of patriotism and honor, love and suicide.

A great, ancient art form, brought right up to date by one of Japan's foremost writers

In this masterpiece of the sexual Gothic, Yukio Mishima creates a portrait ofobsessive love and corrosive jealousy among a young widow, her father-in-law, and a domestic servant.

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.