Life for Sale

First serialized in Playboy Japan, a stylish, pulp narrative about a failed suicide attempt and the absurd adventures of a young man with nothing to live for'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.'When Hanio Yamada realizes the future holds nothing of worth to him, he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper, thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits.A world of revenge, murderous mobsters, hidden cameras, a vampire woman, poisonous carrots, espionage and code-breaking, a junkie heiress, home-made explosives and decoys reveals itself to the unwitting Hanio. Is there anything he can do to stop it?

Yields a rare glimpse of the pulp-fiction flipside that partnered the rhapsodic and mystical Mishima... grotesque, melodramatic, spectacular, utterly silly The Times
It's funny and horrific and curious and thoroughly entertaining and should win Mishima a new generation of fans The Independent
There is a place in life for the exhilarating, surreal and sometimes downright silly. This novel ticks all the boxes Spectator
Succeeds in capturing vividly the bathos of the self-pitying modern nihilist... the absurdity of life is conveyed through the tropes of pulp fiction and manga comics The New Statesman
An engaging all-action satire The Guardian
A writer of immense energy and ability Time Out

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

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