Confessions of a Mask
  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241301197
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00

Confessions of a Mask

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The dawning of a young man's homosexual and sadistic desires

A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Each night he imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in Guido Reni's painting; the objects of our hero's desire are tortured, killed and maimed, over and over again each night in his private fantasies. He must hide his lust from a homophobic and stiflingly conventional Japan. Self-loathing and desperate, he begins acting out a love affair with the sister of a school friend, while grappling with his hidden desires under the shadow of a Japan under threat from World War Two.
  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241301197
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00
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About the author

Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of the Japan's most important writers. His books broke social boundaries and taboos at a time when Japan found itself in a state of rapid social change. His interests, besides writing, included body-building, acting and practising as a Samurai. In 1970 he attempted to start a military coup, which failed. Upon realizing this, Mishima performed seppuku, a ritual suicide, upon himself. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times.

Also by Yukio Mishima

Thirst for Love
Spring Snow
The Frolic of the Beasts
Death in Midsummer
Star
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)
Beautiful Star
See all

Praise for Confessions of a Mask

A terrific and astringent work of beauty... a work of art

Times Literary Supplement

A writer of immense energy and ability

Time Out

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 and emotional over-indulgence

Sunday Times