Mishima Yukio

Mishima Yukio

 orig. Hiraoka Kimitake

(born Jan. 14, 1925, Tokyo, Japan—died Nov. 25, 1970, Tokyo) Japanese writer. Having failed to qualify physically for military service in World War II, Mishima worked in a Tokyo factory and after the war studied law. He won acclaim with his first novel, Confessions of a Mask (1949). Many of his characters are obsessed with unattainable ideals and erotic desires, as in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956). His epic The Sea of Fertility, 4 vol. (1965–70), is perhaps his most lasting achievement. He strongly opposed Japan's close ties to the West in the postwar era (notably the new constitution that forbade rearmament) and yearned to preserve Japan's martial spirit and reverence for the emperor. In a symbolic gesture of these beliefs, he died by committing seppuku (ritual disembowelment) after seizing a military headquarters. He is often considered one of Japan's most important 20th-century novelists.

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Mishima Yukio 

(pseudonym of Hiraoka Kimitake).

Born Jan. 14, 1925, in Tokyo; died there, Nov. 26, 1970. Japanese writer. Son of a high-ranking civil servant.

The main characters in most of Mishima’s novels are physically or psychologically crippled; they are attracted by blood, horror, cruelty, or perverted sex, as in Confessions of a Mask (1949) and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956). In his novel Beautiful Star (1962), Mishima wishes for the destruction of earthly civilization. Mishima’s novels have often become best-sellers, and many have been made into films. An ideologist of the far right, Mishima called for the revival of ultrapatriotic traditions (“The Voice of the Hero Spirits,” 1967); in his play My Friend Hitler ( 1968), he preached fascist ideas. During a failed attempt at a military coup in 1970, Mishima committed suicide.

WORKS

Mishima Yukio senshu, 19 vols. Tokyo, 1957–59.

REFERENCE

Istoriia sovremennoi iaponskoi literatury. Moscow, 1961.

K. REKHO