“Human life is limited, but I would like to live forever,” read the note Yukio Mishima left on his desk shortly before he left home for the final time.
Mishima, who would have turned 100 today, often touted as a potential Nobel Prize winner, was one of the most acclaimed Japanese writers and seductive prose stylists of all time. He is also one of the most controversial figures in Japanese history, due to his ultra-nationalist politics, reactionary proclamations – and shocking death by ritual seppuku (suicide) after he led a failed coup attempt.
Mishima was first catapulted to literary stardom with his semi-autobiographical second novel Confessions of a Mask (Kamen no Kokuhaku) (1949), set against a pre-war backdrop marked by imperialistic fervour and right-wing extremism, and featuring a gay protagonist.
