OWNER OF A SAMURAI ARMY
He was a novelist who had his own samurai army, and he was an intellectual
who worked at body-building. The brilliant Japanese writer Yukio Mishima was a
man torn between Japanese tradition and the westernization of his culture. He was
born as Hiraoka Kimitake on January 14, 1925, in Tokyo, but as an adult, he
published under the name Yukio Mishima. He attended Tokyo's Peers School and
the University of Tokyo. Mishima's writing career took off with the 1949 publication of
his first novel,
Confessions of a Mask. A man of discipline and great energy, he
usually wrote from midnight until dawn, and in his lifetime, produced more than 100
works, including novels, short stories, screenplays and traditional Japanese No and
Kabuki plays. He even starred in a film version of his own short story, "Patriotism".
One of his best-known novels is
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, published in
1958. Although Mishima enjoyed many benefits from the westernization of Japan, he
was troubled by the changes wrought on traditional Japanese ways, which was a
common theme in his stories. His last work,
Sea of Fertility, compares modern
Japan to the barren landscape of the moon. In an effort to recapture the samurai
tradition, Mishima organized a private army called the Shield Society. On November
25, 1970, Mishima and four society members took control of an office at military
headquarters in Tokyo. He gave a speech attacking Japan's post-World War II
constitution and then committed suicide.
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