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(★)(´Death in Midsummer and Other Stories´ is a collection of nine of the finest stories by the renowned novelist, essayist and playwright, Yukio Mishima. Personally selected by Mishima for this anthology, and translated into English by four outstanding Japanologists --Donald Keene, Ivan Morris, Geoffrey Sargent, and Edward Seidensticker-- they display Mishima´s masterly command over the short story, a form practiced as a major art in his native Japan. They also represent Mishima´s extraordinary ability to depict, with deftness and penetration, a wide range of human beings in moments of significance. His characters are very often sophisticated, modern Japanese who, in the end, are revealed as not so liberated from the past as they had thought.／ In the title story,´Death in Midsummer´, set at a beach resort, a triple tragedy becomes a cloud of gloom that requires exorcizing. In ´Patriotism´, a young army officer and his wife choose the violent but traditional ´seppuku´, or ritual suicide, as a way of vindicating their belief in ancient values. In another of the stories, a working-class couple, touching in their simple love for each other, pursue financial security by rather shocking means.／ ◆Yukio Mishima, born in Tokyo on January 14, 1925, was probably the most spectacularly talented young Japanese writer to emerge after World War II. Mishima´s first novel was published in 1948, shortly after he graduated from Japan´s prestigious University of Tokyo School of Jurisprudence. Upon leaving the university, he secured a highly coveted position in the Ministry of Finance, but he resigned after just nine months to devote himself fully to his writing. From the time he put pen to paper until his widely publicized death in 1970, he was a very prolific writer, producing some two dozen novels, more than 40 plays, over 90 short stories, several poetry and travel volumes, and hundreds of essays. His mastery won him many top literary awards, among them the 1954 Shinchosha Literary Prize for his novel ´The Sound of Waves´. Although critics are naturally divided on which of his many works is the ultimate masterpiece, Mishima himself regarded ´The Sea of Fertility´ to be his finest effort. He completed his last volume,´The Decay of the Angel´, on the day of his death by ritual suicide on November 25, 1970. Mishima´s writings have been compared to those of Proust, Gide, and Sartre, and his obsession with courage mirrors Ernest Hemingway´s. Today, more than three decades since his death, Yukio Mishima remains one of the pivotal figures of modern Japanese literature.／ ▼CONTENTS／ ●Death In Midsummer (translated and abridged by Edward G. Seidensticker)／ ●Three Million Yen (translated by Edward G. Seidensticker)／ ●Thermos Bottles (Edward G. Seidensticker)／ ●The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love (Ivan Morris)／ ●The Seven Bridges (Donald Keene)／ ●Patriotism (Geoffrey W. Sargent)／ ●Doojooji (Donald Keene)／ ●Onnagata (Donald Keene)／ ●The Pearl (Geoffrey W. Sargent)／ ●Swaddling Clothes (Ivan Morris)) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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