Death in Midsummer

Ten tales of loss and longing, from one one Japan's greatest writers It was the height of summer, and there was anger in the rays of the sun A summer holiday that turns to tragedy; a moonlit journey to fulfil a wish; a couple's unusual way of making a living; a young lieutenant who ends his life; a night of infidelities. This selection contains nine short stories and one modern Noh play by one of Japan's greatest writers. Selected by Mishima himself for translation, they are by turns tender and delicate, ironic and shocking, showing the strange pull between duty and desire, death and beauty. 'He can be funny, even hilarious, but he is also capable of plunging into the dark psychic depths achieved by Hitchcock' New York Times Book Review
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, Ivan Morris, Donald Keene and Geoffrey W. Sargent

Yukio Mishima was born in 1925 in Tokyo, and is considered one of the 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.