Donald Keene in his Tokyo home in 2002.

Kiin Donarudo (キーン・ドナルド^?), formerly Donald Lawrence Keene (born June 18, 1922 in New York City), is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Keene retired from Columbia and moved to Japan with the intention of living out the remainder of his life there. He acquired his Japanese citizenship, and introducing pseudonym 鬼怒鳴門(キーン・ドナルド) on March 8th, 2012.^[1] Keene is well known and respected in Japan and his move there in the aftermath of the earthquake crises was widely lauded.^[2] Keene gave a lecture in Sendai in October 2011.^[3]

Keene has published about 25 books in English on Japanese topics, including both studies of Japanese literature and culture and translations of Japanese classical and modern literature, including a four-volume history of Japanese literature which has become the standard work.^[2] Keene has also published about 30 books in Japanese (some translated from English).

Keene is the president of the Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture.

Education[link]

Keene received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1942. He studied Japanese language at the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado and in Berkeley, California,^[4] and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific region during World War II. Upon his discharge from the US Navy, he returned to Columbia where he earned a master's degree in 1947.

He studied for a year at Harvard University before transferring to Cambridge where he earned a second master's, after which he stayed at Cambridge as a Lecturer from 1949-1955. In the interim, he also studied at Kyoto University, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1951. Keene credits Tsunoda Ryūsaku as a mentor during this period.

Publications[link]

Translations[link]

• Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance (Taylor's Foreign Pr, 1951)
• Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human (New Directions, 1958)
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1961)
• Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1967)
• Mishima Yukio, Five Modern Noh Plays - Including: Madame de Sade (Tuttle, 1967)
• Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, a Puppet Play (Columbia Univ Pr, April 1, 1971)
• Mishima Yukio, After the Banquet (Random House Inc, January 1, 1973)
• Dazai Osamu, The Setting Sun (Tuttle, 1981)
• Abe Kobo, Three Plays (Columbia Univ Pr, February 1, 1997)
• Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1997)
• Kawabata Yasunari, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Kodansha Amer Inc, September 1, 1998)
• Yamamoto Yuzo, One Hundred Sacks of Rice: A Stage Play (Nagaoka City Kome Hyappyo Foundation, 1998)
• Donald Keene & Oda Makoto, The Breaking Jewel, Keene, Donald (trans) (Columbia Univ Pr, March 1, 2003)

Editor[link]

• Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Grove Pr, March 1, 1960)
• Anthology of Chinese Literature: From the 14th Century to the Present Day (co-editor with Cyril Birch) (Grove Pr, June 1, 1987)
• Love Songs from the Man'Yoshu (Kodansha Amer Inc, August 1, 2000)

Works in English[link]

• The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance (Taylor's Foreign Pr, 1951)
• The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and other discoverers 1720-1952 (Routledge and K. Paul, 1952)
• Japanese Literature an Introduction for Western Readers (Grove Pr, June 1, 1955)
• Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology (Grove Pr, June 1, 1956)
• Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, January 1, 1961)
• Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1961)
• Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830 (Stanford Univ Pr, June 1, 1969)
• Twenty Plays of the Noh Theatre (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1970)
• World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867 (Henry Holt & Co, October 1, 1976) -(Second book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• Some Japanese Portraits (Kodansha Amer Inc, March 1, 1979)
• Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era (Henry Holt & Co, September 1, 1987)
  • Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era; Poetry, Drama, Criticism (Holt Rinehart & Winston, April 1, 1984) -(Fourth book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
  • Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era; Fiction (Holt Rinehart & Winston, April 1, 1984) -(Third book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• The Pleasures of Japanese Literature (Columbia Univ Pr, October 1, 1988; ISBN 0-231-06736-4)
• Donald Keene with Herbert E. Plutschow, Introducing Kyoto (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1989)
• Travelers of a Hundred Ages: The Japanese As Revealed Through 1,000 Years of Diaries (Diane Pub Co, June 1, 1989)
• Modern Japanese Novels and the West (Umi Research Pr, July 1, 1989)
• No and Bunraku: Two Forms of Japanese Theatre (Columbia Univ Pr, December 1, 1990)
• Appreciations of Japanese Culture (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1991)
• Donald Keene with Ooka Makoto, The Colors of Poetry: Essays in Classic Japanese Verse (Katydid Books, May 1, 1991)
• Travelers of a Hundred Ages (Henry Holt & Co, August 1, 1992)
• Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century (Henry Holt & Co, June 1, 1993) -(First book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• On Familiar Terms: A Journey Across Cultures (Kodansha Amer Inc, January 1, 1994)
• Modern Japanese Diaries: The Japanese at Home and Abroad As Revealed Through Their Diaries (Henry Holt & Co, March 1, 1995)
• The Blue-Eyed Tarokaja: A Donald Keene Anthology (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1996
• On Familiar Terms: To Japan and Back, a Lifetime Across Cultures (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1996)
• Donald Keene with Anne Nishimura & Frederic A. Sharf, Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Woodblock Prints from the Meija Era, 1868-1912 (Museum of Fine Arts Boston, May 1, 2001)
• Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600 compiled by Donalde Keen, Wm. Theodore De Bary, George Tanabe and Paul Varley (Columbia Univ Pr, May 1, 2001)
• Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 (Columbia Univ Pr, April 1, 2002)
• Donald Keene with Lee Bruschke-Johnson & Ann Yonemura, Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints from the Anne Van Biema Collection (Univ of Washington Pr, September 1, 2002)
• Five Modern Japanese Novelists (Columbia Univ Pr, December 1, 2002)
• Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Columbia Univ Pr, November 1, 2003)
• Frog In The Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841 (Asia Perspectives),(Columbia Univ. Press, 2006)
• Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan. (Columbia Univ. Press, 2008)
• So Lovely A Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers (Columbia Univ. Press, 2010)

Honorary degrees[link]

Keene has been awarded nine honorary doctorates, from:

• Toyo University (Tokyo, 2011)
• Kyorin University (Tokyo, 2007)
• Kyoto Sangyo University (Kyoto, 2002)
• Keio University (Tokyo, 2000)
• Keiwa College (Niigata, 2000)
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Tokyo, 1999)
• Waseda University (Tokyo, 1998)
• Tohoku University (Sendai, 1997)
• Columbia University (New York, 1997)
• Middlebury College (Vermont, 1995)
• St. Andrews Presbyterian College (North Carolina, 1990)
• University of Cambridge (1978)

Awards and commendations[link]

• Kikuchi Kan Prize (Kikuchi Kan Shō Society for the Advancement of Japanese Culture), 1962.^[5]
• Van Ameringen Distinguished Book Award, 1967
• Kokusai Shuppan Bunka Shō Taishō, 1969
• Kokusai Shuppan Bunka Shō, 1971
• Yamagata Banto Prize (Yamagata Bantō Shō), 1983
• The Japan Foundation Award (Kokusai Kōryū Kikin Shō), 1983
• Yomiuri Literary Prize (Yomiuri Bungaku Shō), 1985 (Keene was the first non-Japanese to receive this prize, for a book of literary criticism (Travellers of a Hundred Ages) in Japanese)
• Award for Excellence (Graduate Faculties Alumni of Columbia University), 1985
• Nihon Bungaku Taishō, 1985
• Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University named in Keene's honour, 1986
• Tōkyō-to Bunka Shō, 1987
• NBCC (The National Book Critics Circle) Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publishing, 1990
• The Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (Fukuoka Ajia Bunka Shō), 1991
• Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) Hōsō Bunka Shō, 1993
• Inoue Yasushi Bunka Shō (Inoue Yasushi Kinen Bunka Zaidan), 1995
• The Distinguished Achievement Award (from The Tokyo American Club) (for the lifetime achievements and unique contribution to international relations), 1995
• Award of Honor (from The Japan Society of Northern California), 1996
• Asahi Prize, 1997
• Mainichi Shuppan Bunka Shō (The Mainichi Newspapers), 2002
• The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, 2003
• Ango Award (from Niigata, Niigata), 2010

National honors and decorations[link]

Decorations[link]

• (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, Third Class, 1975)
• (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class, 1993)
• Order of Culture (Bunka kunshō), 2008.^[6]

Honors[link]

• Person of Cultural Merit (Bunka Kōrōsha) (Japanese Government), 2002 (Keene is the third non-Japanese person to be designated "an individual of distinguished cultural service" by the Japanese government)

Notes[link]

1. ^ 「待っていた知らせ」　日本国籍取得のキーン氏　漢字表記は「鬼怒（キーン・ド）鳴門（ナルド）」」Sankei Shimbun 2012-03-08
2. ^ ^{a b} "Lunch with the FT: Donald Keene", by David Pilling, Financial Times, 28 Oct 2011. (Archive link)
3. ^ Japan scholar Keene in Sendai, on Kyodo News
4. ^ Cary, Otis and Donald Keene. War-wasted Asia: letters, 1945-46. Kodansha International, 1975. ISBN 9780870112577 p13
5. ^ "Professor Gets Prize; Keene of Columbia Cited for Work in Japanese Letters," New York Times. March 5, 1962.
6. ^ "Donald Keene, 7 others win Order of Culture," Yomiuri Shimbun. October 29, 2008.^{[dead link]}

See also[link]

• Japanese literature

External links[link]

• Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
• "Chronicles of My Life"

Paul Rotha (born Paul Thompson, 3 June 1907, London – 7 March 1984, Wallingford, Oxfordshire) was a British documentary film-maker, film historian and critic. He was educated at Highgate School.

Rotha was a close collaborator of John Grierson. Wolfgang Suschitzky was one of his cinematographers. He directed the documentaries The World Is Rich (1947) and Cradle of Genius (1961), both of which were nominated for an Academy Award.

Rotha married Irish actress Constance Smith in 1974.

See also[link]

• John Grierson
• Bill Nichols
• Basil Wright

References[link]

• The Film Till Now: A Survey of the Cinema (London: Jonathan Cape, 1930)
• Documentary Film (London: Faber and Faber, 1935) The first major study on documentary film
• The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema, with an additional section by Richard Griffith, revised and enlarged edition, (London: Vision, 1949)
• Portrait of a Flying Yorkshireman: Letters From Eric Knight in the United States to Paul Rotha in England, edited by Paul Rotha. Selected correspondence (London: Chapman and Hall, 1952)
• Rotha on the Film; a Selection of Writings About the Cinema (Fair Lawn, NJ:. Essential Books, 1958)
• Documentary Film; the use of the film medium to interpret creatively and in social terms the life of the people as it exists in reality, by Paul Rotha in collaboration with Sinclair Road and Richard Griffith. 3d ed., rev. and enl.of Documentary Film (London: Faber and Faber, 1952; New York: Hastings House, 1963)
• Documentary Diary: An Informal History of the British Documentary Film 1928-1939 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1973)
• Robert J. Flaherty: A Biography, edited by Jay Ruby (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983)
• A Paul Rotha Reader, edited by Duncan Petrie and Robert Kruger (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999)

External links[link]

• Bfi screenonline entry
• Paul Rotha at the Internet Movie Database
• Paul Rotha's papers at The University of California
• Paul Rotha and Japanese documentary

This biographical article related to film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

James Weatherly "Jim" Neal, Jr. (born 1956) is a North Carolina Democrat and a business executive and investment banker who was a candidate in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 2008 (for the seat occupied at the time by Republican Elizabeth Dole). He is originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, and currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Early life and education[link]

Jim Neal was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 6, 1956. Neal was named after his paternal great-grandfather, James Milton "Daddy Jim" Weatherly, a tobacco farmer who served as the Superintendent of the Rockingham County Department of Highways in the early 20th century. He attended Walter Hines Page High School (Greensboro, NC) in the early 1970s. His parents never graduated from college and Neal was the first member of his family to do so, in 1978, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned a B.S. from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business. After graduating from UNC, he worked as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs, and later obtained a masters degree in finance from the University of Chicago in 1983.^[1][2]

Career[link]

Following graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1978, Neal joined Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. He returned to school at the University of Chicago, where he earned a MBA in Finance while working a series of part-time jobs to pay his way through school.^{[citation needed]} As an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, he earned a reputation for leadership and innovative strategies while advising Fortune 500 companies on how to play successful roles in a changing global economy. He also was a managing director at Piper Jaffray where he was co-head of the life sciences investment banking group based in San Francisco.

Neal worked as a senior investment banker with E.F. Hutton and Bear Stearns, serving clients that ranged from Bank of America and American Express to Lincoln National Corporation and Transamerica.

For the past two decades, Neal has focused his career on information technology and healthcare companies, including serving as CEO of RxMarketplace.com, a start-up firm that helped pharmacists offer patients prescription drugs at more affordable prices.^[1]

Since 2000, Neal has led several private companies prior to founding The Agema Group LLC, a financial advisory firm based in Chapel Hill.^[2]

Political involvement[link]

The 2008 campaign for United States Senate was Jim Neal's first attempt at elective office. He has, however, been involved in politics for many years. Neal worked as a volunteer as a youth for Lyndon Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign, the 1968 Judge L. Richardson Preyer campaign for Congress and the 1972 Skipper Bowles campaign for Governor. As a young man, he was a grassroots volunteer with the presidential campaigns of both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. In 2004, Neal served as a member of the National Campaign Finance Committees of presidential candidates Wesley Clark and John Kerry and also assisted NC Democratic US Senate candidate Erskine Bowles in his second attempt to capture a Senate seat.

In the 2008 Democratic primary, Neal faced state Senator Kay Hagan of Greensboro, podiatrist Howard Staley of Moncure, Lexington trucker Duskin Lassiter and Lumberton attorney Marcus Williams. Neal earned the endorsement of the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg: Chairman Dwayne Collins said, “The membership of the Black Political Caucus is proud to support Mr. Neal with our endorsement in the U.S. Senate race. We thought Jim is the ideal candidate to defeat Elizabeth Dole, and that is why we are behind his candidacy. He was the best candidate on the issues that affect all citizens, but especially members of the African American community. We look forward to working with Jim Neal to improve the lives of the human family of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.” He also was endorsed by Blue America PAC, eQualityGiving, the Independent Weekly and YES ! Weekly.^[2] Neal finished second in the May 6, 2008 primary, and the victor Kay Hagan went on to defeat Senator Elizabeth Dole in the November 2008 general election. Hagan defeated Neal with 60% of the vote to his 18%, although Neal carried two counties in western North Carolina.^[3]

On June 2nd, 2011, Neal was arrested for entering the North Carolina State House chambers after having spoken at a rally in opposition to a proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and benefit rights . ^[4] Neal said that he was protesting the state GOP-controlled Legislature's "frontal assault on our education system, mental and public health systems, our environment, women's access to reproductive healthcare and the social compact that once supported a strong middle class."^[5]

Personal life[link]

Neal lives in Chapel Hill with the younger of his two sons, Winston; the older, James, is currently working in New York City.^[2] The divorced Neal is gay, but declared that it would not hurt his chances for securing the Democratic nomination in the U.S. Senate race. "[It's] no secret and no big deal to me — I wouldn't be running if I didn't think otherwise."^[6][7]

Neal’s late parents, James Weatherly and Mildred Hartzoge Neal, were lifelong residents of North Carolina. His grandparents- a carpenter, an elementary school teacher and two mill workers—influenced him.^{[citation needed]}

Neal has continued his active involvement in nonprofit groups and political initiatives, as a member of the Board of Governors of The New School from 2002 to 2006, he also served as a national finance committee member for Wes Clark for President and the Kerry-Edwards campaigns, as well as acting as a national fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles in 2004.

Neal has served his community as an overnight volunteer at a homeless shelter, a lay minister to mentally ill residents of an assisted-care facility, and a sponsor of a post-war Vietnamese refugee family in alliance with the International Rescue Committee.^{[citation needed]}He is a member of the Board of Freedom House Recovery Center, Advisory Board of The NC Justice Center's Policy Watch and Democracy North Carolina as well as a contributor to The Huffington Post.

References[link]

External links[link]

• News & Observer candidate profile
• NPR-WUNC candidate profile
• North Carolina Democratic Party

Yukio Mishima
photograph by Shirou Aoyama (1956)
Born	(1925-01-14)January 14, 1925 Shinjuku, Tokyo
Died	November 25, 1970(1970-11-25) (aged 45) JSDF headquarters, Tokyo
Pen name	Yukio Mishima
Occupation	novelist, playwright, poet, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	Japanese
Ethnicity	Japanese
Citizenship	Japanese
Alma mater	University of Tokyo
Period	1944–1970
Children	Noriko Tomita (daughter), Iichiro Hiraoka (son)
Influences Ōshio Heihachirō,[1] Thomas Mann,[1] Friedrich Nietzsche,[1] Raymond Radiguet,[2] François Mauriac,[2] Consciousness-only Buddhism, Martial arts, Oscar Wilde
Influenced Douglas Pearce, William Vollmann [3]

Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio^?) was the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake^?, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director. Nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mishima was internationally famous and is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change.^[4] He is also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état.

Life and work[link]

Early life[link]

Mishima in his childhood (ca. April 1931)

Mishima was born in the Yotsuya district of Tokyo (now part of Shinjuku). His father was Azusa Hiraoka, a government official, and his mother, Shizue, was the daughter of a school principal in Tokyo. His paternal grandparents were Jotarō and Natsuko Hiraoka. He had a younger sister, Mitsuko, who died of typhus, and a younger brother, Chiyuki.^{[citation needed]}

Mishima's early childhood was dominated by the shadow of his grandmother, Natsu, who took the boy, separating him from his immediate family for several years.^[5] Natsu was the illegitimate granddaughter of Matsudaira Yoritaka, the daimyo of Shishido in Hitachi Province, and had been raised in the household of Prince Arisugawa Taruhito; she maintained considerable aristocratic pretensions even after marrying Mishima's grandfather, a bureaucrat who had made his fortune in the newly opened colonial frontier and who rose to become Governor-General of Karafuto. She was also prone to violence and morbid outbursts, which are occasionally alluded to in Mishima's works.^[6] It is to Natsu that some biographers have traced Mishima's fascination with death.^[7] Natsu did not allow Mishima to venture into the sunlight, to engage in any kind of sport or to play with other boys; he spent much of his time alone or with female cousins and their dolls.^[6]

Mishima returned to his immediate family at age 12. His father, a man with a taste for military discipline, employed parenting tactics such as holding the young boy up to the side of a speeding train; he also raided Mishima's room for evidence of an "effeminate" interest in literature and often ripped up the boy's manuscripts.

Schooling and early works[link]

At age six, Mishima enrolled in the elite Peers School (Gakushuin 学習院).^[8] At 12, Mishima began to write his first stories. He read voraciously the works of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and numerous classic Japanese authors. After six years at school, he became the youngest member of the editorial board of its literary society. Mishima was attracted to the works of Michizō Tachihara, which in turn created an appreciation for the classical form of the waka. Mishima's first published works included waka poetry, before he turned his attention to prose.

He was invited to write a prose short story for the Peers' School literary magazine and submitted Hanazakari no Mori (花ざかりの森 The Forest in Full Bloom), a story in which the narrator describes the feeling that his ancestors somehow still live within him. Mishima’s teachers were so impressed with the work that they recommended it for the prestigious literary magazine, Bungei-Bunka (文芸文化 Literary Culture). The story, which makes use of the metaphors and aphorisms that later became his trademarks, was published in book form in 1944, albeit in a limited fashion (4,000 copies) because of the wartime shortage of paper. In order to protect him from a possible backlash from his schoolmates, his teachers coined the pen-name "Yukio Mishima".

Mishima's story Tabako (煙草 The Cigarette), published in 1946, describes some of the scorn and bullying he faced at school when he later confessed to members of the school's rugby union club that he belonged to the literary society. This trauma also provided material for the later story Shi o Kaku Shōnen (詩を書く少年 The Boy Who Wrote Poetry) in 1954.

Mishima received a draft notice for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. At the time of his medical check up, he had a cold and spontaneously lied to the army doctor about having symptoms of tuberculosis; he was thus declared unfit for service.

Although his father had forbidden him to write any further stories, Mishima continued to write secretly every night, supported and protected by his mother, who was always the first to read a new story. Attending lectures during the day and writing at night, Mishima graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1947. He obtained a position as an official in the government's Finance Ministry and was set up for a promising career.

However, Mishima had exhausted himself so much that his father agreed to his resigning from his position during his first year in order to devote his time to writing.

Post-war literature[link]

Mishima wrote novels, popular serial novellas, short stories and literary essays, as well as highly acclaimed plays for the Kabuki theater and modern versions of traditional Noh drama.

Mishima began the short story Misaki nite no Monogatari (岬にての物語 A Story at the Cape) in 1945, and continued to work on it through the end of World War II. In January 1946, he visited famed writer Yasunari Kawabata in Kamakura, taking with him the manuscripts for Chūsei (中世 The Middle Ages) and Tabako, and asking for Kawabata’s advice and assistance. In June 1946, per Kawabata's recommendations, Tabako was published in the new literary magazine Ningen (人間 Humanity).

Also in 1946, Mishima began his first novel, Tōzoku (盗賊 Thieves), a story about two young members of the aristocracy drawn towards suicide. It was published in 1948, placing Mishima in the ranks of the Second Generation of Postwar Writers. He followed with Confessions of a Mask, a semi-autobiographical account of a young latent homosexual who must hide behind a mask in order to fit into society. The novel was extremely successful and made Mishima a celebrity at the age of 24. Around 1949, Mishima published a series of essays in Kindai Bungaku on Yasunari Kawabata, for whom he had always had a deep appreciation.

His writing gained him international celebrity and a sizable following in Europe and the United States, as many of his most famous works were translated into English. Mishima traveled extensively; in 1952 he visited Greece, which had fascinated him since childhood. Elements from his visit appear in Shiosai (潮騒 Sound of the Waves), which was published in 1954, and which drew inspiration from the Greek legend of Daphnis and Chloe.

Mishima made use of contemporary events in many of his works. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion in 1956 is a fictionalization of the burning of the famous temple in Kyoto. Utage no Ato (After the Banquet), published in 1960, so closely followed the events surrounding politician Hachirō Arita's campaign to become governor of Tokyo that Mishima was sued for invasion of privacy.^[9] In 1962, Mishima's most avant-garde work, Utsukushii Hoshi (Beautiful Star), which at times comes close to science fiction, was published to mixed critical response.

Mishima was among those considered for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times and was the darling of many foreign publications. However, in 1968 his early mentor Kawabata won the Nobel Prize and Mishima realized that the chances of it being given to another Japanese author in the near future were slim.

Acting and modelling[link]

Mishima was also an actor, and had a starring role in Yasuzo Masumura's 1960 film, Afraid to Die. He also has had roles in films including Yukoku (1966), Black Lizard (1968) and Hitokiri (1969). He also sang the theme song for Hitokiri.

Mishima was featured as a photo model in Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses by Eikoh Hosoe, as well as in Young Samurai: Bodybuilders of Japan and OTOKO: Photo Studies of the Young Japanese Male by Tamotsu Yatō. Donald Richie gives a short lively account^[10] of Mishima, dressed in a loincloth and armed with a sword, posing in the snow for one of Tamotsu Yato's photoshoots.

Private life[link]

Yukio Mishima (lower) with Shintaro Ishihara in 1956.

In 1955, Mishima took up weight training and his workout regimen of three sessions per week was not disrupted for the final 15 years of his life. In his 1968 essay Sun and Steel, Mishima deplored the emphasis given by intellectuals to the mind over the body. Mishima later also became very skillful at kendō.

Although it is known that he visited gay bars in Japan, Mishima's sexual orientation annoyed his widow: she wanted that part of his life downplayed after his death.^[11] However, the writer Jiro Fukushima published a revealing homosexual correspondence between himself and the famed novelist. Soon after publication, Mishima's children successfully sued Fukushima for violating Mishima's privacy.^[12] After briefly considering a marital alliance with Michiko Shōda — who later married Crown Prince Akihito and is now Empress Michiko —^[13] he married Yoko Sugiyama on June 11, 1958. The couple had two children, a daughter named Noriko (born June 2, 1959) and a son named Ichiro (born May 2, 1962).

In 1967, Mishima enlisted in the Ground Self Defense Force (GSDF) and underwent basic training. A year later, he formed the Tatenokai (Shield Society), a private army composed primarily of young students who studied martial principles and physical discipline, and swore to protect the Emperor. Mishima trained them himself. However, under Mishima's ideology, the emperor was not necessarily the reigning Emperor, but rather the abstract essence of Japan. In Eirei no Koe (Voices of the Heroic Dead), Mishima actually denounces Emperor Hirohito for renouncing his claim of divinity at the end of World War II.

In the last 10 years of his life, Mishima wrote several full length plays, acted in several movies and co-directed an adaptation of one of his stories, Patriotism, the Rite of Love and Death. He also continued work on his final tetralogy, Hōjō no Umi (Sea of Fertility), which appeared in monthly serialized format starting in September 1965.

Mishima espoused a very individual brand of nationalism towards the end of his life. He was hated by leftists, in particular for his outspoken and anachronistic commitment to bushido (the code of the samurai) and by mainstream nationalists for his contention, in Bunka Bōeiron (文化防衛論 A Defense of Culture), that Hirohito should have abdicated and taken responsibility for the war dead.

Coup attempt and ritual suicide[link]

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai, under pretext, visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp — the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces.^[11] Inside, they barricaded the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the soldiers gathered below. His speech was intended to inspire a coup d'état restoring the powers of the emperor. He succeeded only in irritating them, and was mocked and jeered. He finished his planned speech after a few minutes, returned to the commandant's office and committed seppuku. The customary kaishakunin duty at the end of this ritual had been assigned to Tatenokai member Masakatsu Morita, but Morita was unable to properly perform the task. After several failed attempts, he allowed another Tatenokai member, Hiroyasu Koga, to behead Mishima. Morita himself attempted to commit seppuku that day as well. When he failed, Koga once again performed the kaishakunin duty.

Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of jisei no ku (death poems) before their entry into the headquarters.^[14] Mishima planned his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked Tatenokai members had any indication of what he was planning. His biographer, translator and former friend John Nathan suggests that the coup attempt was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed.^[15] Mishima made sure his affairs were in order and left money for the legal defense of the three surviving Tatenokai members.

Much speculation has surrounded Mishima's suicide. At the time of his death he had just completed the final book in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy.^[11] He was recognized as one of the most important post-war stylists of the Japanese language. Mishima wrote 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, and at least 20 books of essays, one libretto, as well as one film. A large portion of this oeuvre comprises books written quickly for profit, but even if these are disregarded, a substantial body of work remains.

Awards[link]

• Shincho Prize from Shinchosha Publishing, 1954, for The Sound of Waves.
• Kishida Prize for Drama from Shinchosha Publishing, 1955.
• Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best novel, 1957, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
• Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best drama, 1961, Toka no Kiku.

Major works[link]

Literature[link]

*For the temple called Kinkaku-ji, see Kinkaku-ji.

Plays for classical Japanese theatre[link]

In addition to contemporary-style plays such as Madame de Sade, Mishima wrote for two of the three genres of classical Japanese theatre: Noh and Kabuki (as a proud Tokyoite, he would not even attend the Bunraku puppet theatre, always associated with Osaka and the provinces).^[16]

Though Mishima took themes, titles and characters from the Noh canon, his twists and modern settings, such as hospitals and ballrooms, startled audiences accustomed to the long-settled originals.

Donald Keene translated Five Modern Noh Plays (Tuttle, 1981; ISBN 0-8048-1380-9). Most others remain untranslated and so lack an "official" English title; in such cases it is therefore preferable to use the rōmaji title.

Films[link]

Works about Mishima[link]

• Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses by Eikō Hosoe and Mishima (photoerotic collection of images of Mishima, with his own commentary) (Aperture 2002 ISBN 0-89381-169-6)
• Deadly Dialectics: Sex, Violence, and Nihilism in the World of Yukio Mishima by Roy Starrs (University of Hawaii Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8248-1630-7 and ISBN 0-8248-1630-7)
• Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, No 33) by Susan J. Napier (Harvard University Press, 1995 ISBN 0-674-26181-X)
• Mishima: A Biography by John Nathan (Boston, Little, Brown and Company 1974, ISBN 0-316-59844-5)
• Mishima ou la vision du vide (Mishima : A Vision of the Void), essay by Marguerite Yourcenar trans. by Alberto Manguel 2001 ISBN 0-226-96532-5)
• Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors by Colin Wilson (Mishima profiled in context of phenomenon of various "outsider" Messiah types), (Hampton Roads Publishing Company 2000 ISBN 1-57174-175-5)
• The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, by Henry Scott Stokes London : Owen, 1975 ISBN 0-7206-0123-1)
• The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima by Jerry S. Piven. (Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2004 ISBN 0-275-97985-7)
• Teito Monogatari (vol. 5–10) by Hiroshi Aramata (a fantasy/historical novel featuring Mishima as a central character contending with malignant spiritual forces which feed off his nationalist pride), (Kadokawa Shoten ISBN/ASIN 4041690056)
• Yukio Mishima by Peter Wolfe ("reviews Mishima's life and times, discusses, his major works, and looks at important themes in his novels," 1989, ISBN 0-8264-0443-X)
• Yukio Mishima, Terror and Postmodern Japan by Richard Appignanesi (2002, ISBN 1-84046-371-6)
• Mishima's Sword – Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend by Christopher Ross (2006, ISBN 0-00-713508-4)
• Yukio Mishima's Report to the Emperor by Richard Appignanesi (2003, ISBN 978-0-9540476-6-5)
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), a film directed by Paul Schrader
• The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima (1985) BBC documentary) directed by Michael Macintyre
• Yukio Mishima: Samurai Writer, a BBC documentary on Yukio Mishima, directed by Michael Macintyre, (1985, VHS ISBN 978-1-4213-6981-5, DVD ISBN 978-1-4213-6982-2)
• Yukio Mishima, a play by Adam Darius and Kazimir Kolesnik, first performed at Holloway Prison, London, in 1991, and later in Finland, Slovenia and Portugal.
• String Quartet No.3, "Mishima", by Philip Glass. A compilation of his soundtrack for the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters it has a duration of 18 minutes.

	Novels portal
	Japan portal

See also[link]

• Kosaburo Eto
• Yukio Mishima Prize
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• The Mishima Yukio Cyber Museum In Japanese only
• Yukio Mishima: A 20th Century Samurai
• Books and Writers bio
• Mishima chronology, with links
• YUKIO MISHIMA: The Harmony of Pen and Sword Ceremony commemorating his 70th Birthday Anniversary
• Film review of Yukoku (Patriotism)
• Mishima is interviewed in English on a range of subjects on YouTube, From a 1980s BBC documentary (9:02)
• Mishima is interviewed in English on the subject of Japanese Nationalism on YouTube, From Canadian Television (3:59)
• Headless God: A Tribute to Yukio Mishima Mishima-related news, quotes, links