Life for Sale (Penguin Modern Classics)

The best book Ive read this year ... darkly comedic and full of tension and surprise' Marina Abramovic'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.'When Hanio Yamada realises the future holds little of worth to him he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits. A world of murderous mobsters hidden cameras a vampire woman poisoned carrots code-breaking a hopeless junkie heiress and makeshift explosives reveals itself to the unwitting hero. Is there nothing he can do to stop it? Resolving to follow the orders of his would-be purchasers he comes to understand what life is worth and whether we can indeed name our price.|Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo and is considered one of 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.|Yields a rare glimpse of the pulp-fiction flipside that partnered the rhapsodic and mystical Mishima... grotesque melodramatic spectacular utterly silly|It's funny and horrific and curious and thoroughly entertaining and should win Mishima a new generation of fans|There is a place in life for the exhilarating surreal and sometimes downright silly. This novel ticks all the boxes|Succeeds in capturing vividly the bathos of the self-pitying modern nihilist... the absurdity of life is conveyed through the tropes of pulp fiction and manga comics|An engaging all-action satire|A writer of immense energy and ability|'The best book I've read this year ... darkly comedic and full of tension and surprise' Marina Abramovic 'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.'When Hanio Yamada realises the future holds little of worth to him he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits. A world of murderous mobsters hidden cameras a vampire woman poisoned carrots code-breaking a hopeless junkie heiress and makeshift explosives reveals itself to the unwitting hero. Is there nothing he can do to stop it? Resolving to follow the orders of his would-be purchasers he comes to understand what life is worth and whether we can indeed name our price.