Yukio Mishima (1925-70)

Yukio Mishima (pseudonym of Kimitake Hiraoka, 1925-70) born in Tokyo, have made tremendeous large amount pieces of different kind of art , including around 50 novels, 60 plays, dozens of historical books about literature, about 200 novels, and huge amount (maybe 2000) of articles in different kind of magazines.

He failed to qualify to army during WWII and served by working in aircraft factory. After war, he emloyed short time in finance ministry. Mishima's first novel was a partly autobiographical "Confessions of a Mask" which was succesfull enough to give him a possibility to start work as a full time writer.

He was obviously genious and was able to produce ready material straight without making any corrections. His most famous play was "Madame de Sade", which was his profound analysis of dark side of women's psyche.

Mishima was the organizator of Tatenokai, a society wich is focused to the physical fitness and martial arts. He committed a ritual suicide, seppuku as a protest against "modern Japanese weakness".

Many researchers and have analyzed his life, and noticed that in his personality it is possible to notice almost each parts of humanity, wich is valid fact for most of the world's known genious. His homosexual tendency was publicly known.

I recently found Philip Glass's wonderful soundtrack from the biographical movie "Mishima". Unfortunatedly I haven't had a possibility to see the film itself yet, but what comes to the music, it seems very fascinating.

Mishima's novels

• Confessions of a Mask. (1949)
• Thirst for Love. (1950)
• Forbidden Colors. (1951, 1952)
• Death in Midsummer. (1953)
• The Sound of Waves. (1954)
• The Modern Noh-plays. (1956)
• The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. (1956)
• Kyoko's House. (1959)
• After the Banquet. (1960)
• The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea. (1963)
• Madame de Sade. (1965)
• The Sea of Fertility Spring Snow. (1965)
• Runaway Horses. (1967)
• The Temple of Dawn. ( 1968)
• The Decay of the Angel. (1970)

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