Product details
- ISBN 9781529988437
- Weight: 500g
- Dimensions: 135 x 190mm
- Publication Date: 06 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Vintage Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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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 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.
