Sun and Steel - Tapa blanda

"Necessary reading for anyone who wants to try to understand the background to his suicide and his outlook in the last period of his life." "Had we been able to read Sun and Steel before Mishima committed suicide, the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." "One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose." -Library Journal "Necessary reading." -Times Literary Supplement "Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." -Sunday Times "A key to the novelist's behavior." -Sunday Telegraph "One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose." -Library Journal "Necessary reading." -Times Literary Supplement "Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." -Sunday Times "A key to the novelist's behavior." -Sunday Telegraph "One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose." -Library Journal "Necessary reading." -Times Literary Supplement "Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." -Sunday Times "A key to the novelist's behavior." -Sunday Telegraph "One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose." -Library Journal "Necessary reading." -Times Literary Supplement "Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." -Sunday Times "A key to the novelist's behavior." -Sunday Telegraph

This is the personal testament of Japan's greatest novelist, written shorty before his public suicide in 1970. Through Mishima's finely wrought and emphatic prose, the mind and motivation behind his agonized search for personal identity is revealed. In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end fits into none of them. At one level, it may be read as an account of how a puny, bookish boy discovered the importance