Yukio Mishima(1925-1970)
- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Yukio Mishima was born in Tokyo in 1925. He attended the University of Tokyo.
His first work of fiction, a short story, was published when he was a
first-year student. For the rest of his life he wrote - to enormous
popular and critical acclaim - plays, poetry, essays, and novels. His
first full-length novel, the autobiographical "Confessions of a Mask,"
is considered a classic of modern Japanese fiction. In it, a young man
grapples with his homosexuality, the intensity of his inner states, the
ways he must conceal himself, and the difficulties of not conforming to
Japanese society. Mishima, educated in Japan and deeply influenced by
European and Russian literature, developed his consuming obsession: a
longing for unvanquished, imperial Japan; its samurai traditions, and
heroic ideals of beauty, nationalism, and honor, including the
traditionally enviable fate of dying for one's country. Mishima led by
example. Along with writing energetically and passionately, he founded
an elite right-wing organization for 100 males, the Shield Society,
dedicated to 'Bushido,' the Samurai code of honor. Mishima became an
expert in traditional martial arts, despaired of modern Japan and
bemoaned the post-war suppression of its traditional past. Control - of
the self, of art and of society - was of the utmost importance to
Mishima. On travel, Mishima wrote in "Mask" : "...at no time are we
ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook
and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that,
there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process
by which we lose our ownership of it. This is what makes travel so
utterly fruitless." Twenty-six years later, Mishima, intense and
disturbed as ever, and in complete 'possession' of his life, committed
suicide in a shocking and internationally-reported public event. He was
forty-five.
