“Completing this grand novel - `The Sea of Fertility` - makes me feel that the end of the world has come...” wrote Yukio Mishima in October 1970. By November, he was dead - after a ritual suicide.
Comprising four parts, `The Sea of Fertility` represents the flourishing of Mishima's unique genius. `Spring Snow` is a poignant and touching love story. In `Runaway Horses`, its bloody sequel, a far-right terrorist takes center stage. In `The Temple of Dawn`, a Thai princess is mystically connected to the heroes of the previous works. `The Decay of the Angel` is a work equally thrilling and romantic as its predecessors, but it is permeated by a farewell sadness.
On November 25, 1970, at the peak of his brilliant literary career, Yukio Mishima shocked the world with his ritual suicide by disembowelment (hara-kiri, or more correctly, seppuku). Mishima frequently referred to themes of suicide and premature death in his works, and he often expressed the desire to die young. He completed this tetralogy, his last work, on the morning of the day of his death.
Just before committing suicide, he wrote to his friends that he felt empty, having given all his beliefs and feelings about life to this gigantic endeavor, which was later praised as a masterpiece.
Cover
Soft
Translation
Yuri L. Kovalenko, Stavros Papastavrou
Publisher
Ekdoseis Kastanioti
