Confessions of a Mask - Softcover

Mishima, Yukio

3.95

30,356 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0720612853 ISBN 13: 9780720612851

Publisher: Peter Owen, 2007

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Regarded as Mishima's finest book, Confessions of a Mask is the story of a Japanese boy's development towards a homosexual identity during and after the Second World War.

Detailing his progress from an isolated childhood through adolescence to manhood, including an abortive love affair with a classmate's sister, it reports the inner life of a boy's preoccupation with death. This fourth reprint attests to the power of the novel's enduring themes of fantasy, despair and alienation, and in its autobiographical content, the equally enduring fascination with the life and character of one of Japan's most turbulent artists.

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Review:

'A terrific and astringent beauty ... a work of art' - Times Literary Supplement 'Mishima stands alone. This Japanese writer is to me one of the most important contemporary novelists.' - Angus Wilson, Observer 'Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair. His book has made me understand how it feels to be Japanese.' - Christopher Isherwood 'Never has a "confession" been freer of self-pity and emotional over-indulgence.' - Francis Wyndham, Sunday Times

From the Back Cover:

'There is in this world a kind of desire like stinging pain'

A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. He imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in the painting that obsesses him. Over and over again, each night in his private fantasies, the objects of his lust are tortured, killed and maimed. But, in the rigid world of imperial wartime Japan there is no place for such transgressive desires. He must wear a false mask and hide his true nature, whatever the cost.

'A terrific and astringent work of beauty' The Times Literary Supplement

'Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair' Christopher Isherwood

'Never has a "confession" been freer from self-pity' Sunday Times

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