😉 Greetings to regular and new readers! In the article “Yukio Mishima: biography, interesting facts” – about the life of an outstanding Japanese writer and playwright.
Yukio Mishima
Perhaps more is known about the death of this writer than about his life. Whether you are reading early works like Confessions of a Mask or the latest tetralogy Sea of Abundance, the feeling of someone trying to work out a definition of himself never leaves. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest Japanese writers of the XNUMXth century.
He was born in 1925, his generation participated in the Second World War. He grew up ready to die for the emperor, as he writes about in The Mask.
During his teenage years, he watched Japan engage in conflict on the continent. The war with China had already begun, the boys were preparing to fight, play their roles and do their duty.
In his youth, he was frail and deathly pale. The disease freed him from the usual troubles in life. Why worry about qualifications, getting a job, or finding a wife when you are destined to die young?
But poor health – misdiagnosed tuberculosis after a cold – prevented him from joining the army. He never recovered from his guilt for being granted release. He survived the war, but since then he was painful about the warrior spirit and death.
His first novel, The Holy Thief, was about suicide. His Confession became a thinly veiled semi-autobiography of a young man coming to terms with homosexuality while avoiding service during the war. This grew into a theme that haunted him for the next 20 years.
Confessions of the Mask became a bestseller and made it famous. Other novels soon followed, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times. However, when his friend and teacher Yasunari Kawabata became a Nobel laureate in 1968, Mishima realized that he would never again receive such an honor.
It is often difficult to separate the life of a creator from his work, and with Mishima it is almost impossible. It was translated into English and other languages at an early stage and became a world fame.
Body work
Yukio traveled a lot, wrote scripts and even sang. He cultivated his own playboy image, took up bodybuilding and photographed half naked with swords. His love for the classic signs of masculinity seemed to only grow stronger during this period.
In addition to physical fitness, he has published books on samurai ethics, bodybuilding, nationalism, and the Japanese army. In 1968, he formed the far-right Tatenokai youth society.
Seppuku
In 1970, Yukio and four Tatenokai members attempted to incite the Self-Defense Forces into a coup d’état, overthrow the government, and rebuild the empire. His speech from the balcony in front of the troops, as soon as the commander was tied up in his office, was greeted with laughter.
Mishima and one of his followers then committed seppuku (hara-kiri) and were beheaded by a third participant. The youth, who were deprived of the opportunity to die for the emperor in the war, still ended their journey in the spirit of Greek tragedy.
Yukio Mishima’s head
Shortly before his death, Mishima completed the final part of his “Sea”.
It is often difficult to separate the creator from his work. With Mishima, this is almost impossible. While obsessions led him to ridicule and contempt, an undefined attitude after death, he remains one of Japan’s most influential writers.
Facts from life
- Hiraoka Kimitake’s real name;
- was born and died in Tokyo;
- the son of a government official;
- the writer’s grandfather was the governor of South Sakhalin in 1908-1914;
- until the age of 12 he was brought up in the house of his grandmother;
- graduated from school with honors and received a silver watch from the hands of the Japanese emperor;
- at the behest of his father, he studied at the Faculty of Law at the Imperial University;
- at 33 he married 18-year-old Yoko Sugiyama, the daughter of a famous Japanese artist;
- the text of Mishima’s suicide note: “Human life is limited, but I would like to live forever.”
Video → Yukio Mishima: biography (briefly)
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