November 25th marks the date of Mishima’s death fifty years ago. See these articles: The Importance of Being Mishima Yukio — Yukio Mishima’s enduring, unexpected influence — Yukio Mishima’s dark fantasies of imperial Japan — Mishima in the World: 50 Years Later — Mishima: Historical Visionary aestheticsDamian FlanagandeathembodimentHosoe EikōIrmela Hijiya-KirschnereitJapanjohn grayKishin ShinoyamaMishimaphilosophical literaturephotographysuicide
Excerpt from Star dropping tomorrow. All eyes are on Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer, 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,…
The very excellent Mishima scholar Donald Keene briefly discusses the English publication of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion almost exactly 57 years ago. What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same…
Mishima once famously told his wife that “even if I am not immediately understood, it’s OK because I’ll be understood by the Japan of 50 or 100 years time.” The short answer according to the very excellent Mishima scholar Damian Flanagan is “no”. Today marks the 45th anniversary of Mishima’s death. Speaking of which see Yourcenar’s thoughts…
Nice piece especially if one is a Mishima fan and like me one has yet to visit Japan, Japan being one of the very few countries on my travel bucket list: Perhaps this explains why the author Yukio Mishima took his pen name from the city, though the writer claimed that he just happened to be…
One of my favourite philosophically orientated novelists is Mishima. I can’t attest to the reliability of this bio-sketch but it’s a start. There is not much scholarly literature on Mishima but here is an appreciation in, of all places, the British Journal of Psychiatry. Paul Schrader made a superb attempt at expressing Mishima’s thinking (insofar as…
manwithoutqualities 