The Unknown Love of Mishima

On April 25, Yuzankaku Publishers released Embarking to "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion:" A Love Discovered, a nonfiction work written in novel form describing a love relationship of Yukio Mishima.

In the summer of 1954 when Mishima was 29, he began a four-year relationship with a woman ten years his junior, an affair which is said to have had a considerable impact on his later writings. The woman, now 73 years old, appeared as "Madam X" in Naoki Inose's Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima published by Bungeishunju in 1995. This new work, however, based on her first interview in many years, includes detailed descriptions of previously unknown incidents. The woman who captured Mishima's heart led an extremely luxurious lifestyle as the daughter of a famous Japanese-style restaurant owner in Akasaka when the pleasure quarters of Tokyo were at their height of prosperity. Out of consideration for the Mishima family, she has asked that her name not be mentioned in the book.

The writer is Hisafumi Iwashita, winner of the 20th Tetsurô Watsuji Literary Prize sponsored by Yuzankaku's "The Geisha."


*Some of the book titles are tentative translations.
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