Persona: a biography of Yukio Mishima

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23. The Anti-Vietnam War Movement24. Sun and Steel; 25. The Shield Society, Counterrevolution; 26. The Yakuza; 27. Wang Yangming: "To know is to act"; 28. The Constitution; 29. Hailstones, Ghouls, Golden Death; 30. Toward Ichigaya; 31. The Seppuku; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index.;""Yukio Mishima (b. 1925) was a brilliant writer and intellectual whose relentless obsession with beauty, purity, and patriotism ended in his astonishing self-disembowelment and decapitation in downtown Tokyo in 1970. Nominated for the Nobel Prize, Mishima was the best-known novelist of his time (works like Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion are still in print in English), and his legacy--his persona--is still honored and puzzled over. Who was Yukio Mishima really? This, the first full biography to appear in English in almost forty years, traces Mishima's trajectory from a sickly boy named Kimitake Hiraoka to a hard-bodied student of martial arts. In detail it examines his family life, the wartime years, and his emergence, then fame, as a writer and advocate for traditional values. Revealed here are all the personalities and conflicts and sometimes petty backbiting that shaped the culture of postwar literary Japan.""--Publisher's description.;Table of Contents; Preface; Prologue; 1. Peasant Ancestors and Grandfather; 2. Samurai Ancestors and Grandmother; 3. ""The Boy Who Writes Poems""; 4. Literary Correspondents; 5. First Love; 6. The War and Its Aftermath; 7. To Be a Bureaucrat or a Writer; 8. Confessions; 9. Boyfriends, Girlfriends; 10. Going Overseas; 11. The Girlfriend; 12. The Kinkakuji; 13. Overseas Again; 14. Marriage; 15. Kyoko's House; 16. The 2.26 Incident, Yukoku; 17. Assassinations; 18. Contretemps; 19. The Nobel Prize; 20. Shinpuren, Men of the Divine Wind; 21. "The Way of the Warrior is to die"; 22. Death in India. Table of Contents Preface Prologue 1. Peasant Ancestors and Grandfather 2. Samurai Ancestors and Grandmother 3. ""The Boy Who Writes Poems"" 4. Literary Correspondents 5. First Love 6. The War and Its Aftermath 7. To Be a Bureaucrat or a Writer 8. Confessions 9. Boyfriends, Girlfriends 10. Going Overseas 11. The Girlfriend 12. The Kinkakuji 13. Overseas Again 14. Marriage 15. Kyoko's House 16. The 2.26 Incident, Yukoku 17. Assassinations 18. Contretemps 19. The Nobel Prize 20. Shinpuren, Men of the Divine Wind 21. "The Way of the Warrior is to die" 22. Death in India. 23. The Anti-Vietnam War Movement24. Sun and Steel 25. The Shield Society, Counterrevolution 26. The Yakuza 27. Wang Yangming: "To know is to act" 28. The Constitution 29. Hailstones, Ghouls, Golden Death 30. Toward Ichigaya 31. The Seppuku Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index.