{"product_id":"persona-a-biography-of-yukio-mishima-9781611720648","title":"Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e(This is the paperback edition of a previously released hardcover.)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eYukio Mishima (b. 1925) was a brilliant writer and intellectual whose relentless obsession with beauty, purity, and patriotism ended in his astonishing self-disembowelment and decapitation in downtown Tokyo in 1970. Nominated for the Nobel Prize, Mishima was the best-known novelist of his time (works like \u003ci\u003eConfessions of a Mask\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Temple of the Golden Pavilion\u003c\/i\u003e are still in print in English), and his legacy—his \u003ci\u003epersona\u003c\/i\u003e—is still honored and puzzled over.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWho was Yukio Mishima really? This, the first full biography to appear in English in almost forty years, traces Mishima's trajectory from a sickly boy named Kimitake Hiraoka to a hard-bodied student of martial arts. In detail it examines his family life, the wartime years, and his emergence, then fame, as a writer and advocate for traditional values. Revealed here are all the personalities and conflicts and sometimes petty backbiting that shaped the culture of postwar literary Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWorking entirely from primary sources and material unavailable to other biographers, author Naoki Inose and translator Hiroaki Sato together have produced a monumental work that covers much new ground in unprecedented depth. Using interviews, social and psychological analysis, and close reading of novels and essays, \u003ci\u003ePersona\u003c\/i\u003e removes the mask that Mishima so artfully created to disguise his true self.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNaoki Inose\u003c\/b\u003e, currently vice governor of Tokyo, has also written biographies of writers Kikuchi Kan and Osamu Dazai.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNew York–based \u003cb\u003eHiroaki Sato\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning translator of classical and modern Japanese poetry, and also translated Mishima's novel \u003ci\u003eSilk and Insight\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Mr. Sato has performed something of a \u003cstrong\u003emiracle\u003c\/strong\u003e in skillfully and patiently adding layer after layer of information, both about the writer and the social and political context in which he worked, in order to give us not only a \u003cstrong\u003ecomprehensible account\u003c\/strong\u003e of the novelist’s complex personal vicissitudes but what is in effect a \u003cstrong\u003etrenchant commentary\u003c\/strong\u003e on the history of cultural and political life in postwar Japan. . . . \u003cem\u003ePersona\u003c\/em\u003e now joins a very small group of studies that succeed in portraying, rather than simply sketching, the \u003cstrong\u003elife of an iconic figure in modern Japanese culture\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e—J. Thomas Rimer, Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature, Theatre, and Art at University of Pittsburgh\u003c\/p\u003e  \"This is a whale of a book—both unusually massive and extremely informative and stimulating. . . . Those who are interested in the brilliantly gifted writer of mid-20th century Japan who is its subject will learn much from this volume, and should be stimulated to go back and read, or re-read, what Yukio Mishima has left us.\" —Paul McCarthy, \u003cem\u003eThe Japan Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"From this biography the reader gains a great sense of the milieu from which Mishima arose, the approaches he took in his cutting-edge writing, and his increased fascination with conservative, hypermasculine Japanese traditions... \u003cstrong\u003ethis is an essential addition to all collections with a strong emphasis on world literature and Japanese history, and for English-reading students of 20th-century Japanese literature\u003c\/strong\u003e.\" —\u003cem\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/em\u003e, November 2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Naoki Inose's biography is immensely detailed and punctilious and not easy reading for a foreigner not versed in Japanese culture and history... but does show him to have been an extraordinary man, in many respects a sympathetic one, and a writer of extraordinary range... I hope that this biography revives interest in the best of his novels, especially in the tetralogy. \" —\u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e, December 2012 \u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cem\u003ePersona\u003c\/em\u003eis a book about Japan itself, as filtered through the life of one of its perhaps most important creations.... If Japan truly represents the Occident and the Orient as so many would have us believe, it’s because of icons like the talented, tragic Mishima.\" —Will Eells, \u003cem\u003eThree Percent\u003c\/em\u003e  \"Mishima's life and his many interests... make for fascinating reading, and \u003cem\u003ePersona\u003c\/em\u003e is a riveting account.\" —M.A. Orthofer, \u003cem\u003eThe Complete Review\u003c\/em\u003e  \"\u003cem\u003ePersona \u003c\/em\u003eis well researched and contains much tantalizing insider information. Like a good novel, it leaves more questions than answers about the man behind the persona.\" —\u003cem\u003eKyoto Journal\u003c\/em\u003e  \"\u003cem\u003ePersona\u003c\/em\u003e deftly reveals to us the actual man and writer who willingly traded his life for a legend: Yukio Mishima. Lurching forward vivid drama by drama and then backtracking to provide us with context, the biography opens up a whole epoch of sexual, literary, and artistic creativity, guiding us through the fiction, the friendships, and the passions that ultimately made Mishima \u003cem\u003eMishima\u003c\/em\u003e.\" —poet Forrest Gander, 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist \"Who was Yukio Mishima? \u003cem\u003ePersona... \u003c\/em\u003eseeks to answer that question with the use of a comprehensive set of primary resources such as interviews, unpublished writings and personal records.\" —JETwit.com\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003eChapter One: The Hometown\u003cbr\u003eChapter Two: Grandparents and Parents\u003cbr\u003eChapter Three: The Boy Who Write Poems (1937-1942)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Four: Azuma Fumihiko\u003cbr\u003eChapter Five: First Love (1942-1945)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Six: The Aftermath of the War (1945-1946)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Seven: A Bureaucrat or a Writer\u003cbr\u003eChapter Eight: Confessions (1948-1949)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Nine: Boyfriends, Girlfriends (1950-1951)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Ten: Going Overseas (1951-1952) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Eleven: The Girlfriend (1953-1957)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twelve: Kinkakuji (1956-1957)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirteen: Overseas Again (1957)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Fourteen: Marriage (1958-1959)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Fifteen: Kyoko’s House (1959) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Sixteen: The 2.26 Incident and Yukoku (1960) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Seventeen: Assassinations (1960-1963)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Eighteen: Contretemps (1963-1964) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Nineteen: The Nobel Prize (1964-1965) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty: The Shimpuren (1966-1967)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-One: “The Way of the Warrior is to die” (1967) \u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Two: Passage to India (1967)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Three: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement (1968)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Four: Sun and Steel (Mid-1968-Early 1969)\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Five: The Shield Society and Counterrevolution\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Six: The Yakuza\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Seven: Yangming Philosophy and Revolution Chapter Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Constitution\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Nine: Toward Ichigaya\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty: The Seppuku\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stone Bridge Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51359726010711,"sku":"9781611720648","price":36.54,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781611720648.jpg?v=1754125525","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/persona-a-biography-of-yukio-mishima-9781611720648","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}