The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

A dark vision…a beautiful, disturbing novel * Los Angeles Times *
Mishima writes with a fury that seldom flags * Glasgow Herald *
Glitters with images of beauty and destruction, cruelty and sacrifice, dedication and betrayal * The Times *
An amazing literary feat * Chicago Tribune *
I adore Mishima’s prose and vivid descriptions. They pull me out of my daily reality * Harpers Bazaar *
Read simply as the story of the man who burned a famous building, it is constantly absorbing. But additional layers of meaning seem to reveal themselves, different for each reader.

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five.

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