Exquisite Nothingness

<p class=ql-align-justify>Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a sensationalist a militarist a self-publicist a contrarian a charlatan a joker a poser a paradox and a hypocrite - but he was also a literary genius. Nominated several times for the Nobel Prize his work remains one of the cornerstones of twentieth-century Japanese literature an enduring provocative and disturbing force probing the strangeness and fragility of our existence in a violent unpredictable world.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In <em>Exquisite Nothingness: The Novels of Yukio Mishima</em> David Vernon explores the full range of Mishima's achievement with a chapter devoted to each of his major novels including established classics like <em>Confessions of a Mask</em><em> Thirst for Love</em> <em>Forbidden Colours</em> <em>The Temple of the Golden Pavilion</em> <em>The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea</em> and the vast final quartet <em>The Sea of Fertility</em> as well as startling works only recently available to English readers: the captivating anti-nuclear science fiction <em>Beautiful Star</em> and the surreal satire on modern times <em>Life for Sale</em>.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>More than half a century since his shocking suicide <em>Exquisite Nothingness</em> aims to reposition Mishima's art at the centre of his controversial legacy acclaiming its depth beauty and devastating emotional power.</p>