YUKIO MISHIMA was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from
Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His
first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944.
He established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask
(1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels,
short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, The
Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow
(1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The
Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works
of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of
forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the
Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual
suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide
attention.
ALFRED H. MARKS (1920–2014) was a professor of early American
literature at the State University of New York at New Paltz, who
published works on Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. He served
in Japan during World War II as part of the military intelligence,
and was a visiting and Fulbright scholar in Kanazawa in 1965. He
was a translator of modern Japanese literature, including works by
Yukio Mishima.
“One of the outstanding writers of the world.” —The New York
Times
"An outstanding writer not only of Japan, but of the
world." —The Atlantic
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