Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a sensationalist, a militarist, a self-publicist, a contrarian, a charlatan, a joker, a poser, a paradox and a hypocrite - but he was also a literary genius. Nominated several times for the Nobel Prize, his work remains one of the cornerstones of twentieth-century Japanese literature, an enduring, provocative and disturbing force probing the strangeness and fragility of our existence in a violent, unpredictable [...] Exquisite Nothingness: The Novels of Yukio Mishima, David Vernon explores the full range of Mishima's achievement, with a chapter devoted to each of his major novels, including established classics like Confessions of a Mask, Thirst for Love, Forbidden Colours, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and the vast final quartet The Sea of Fertility, as well as startling works only recently available to English readers: the captivating anti-nuclear science fiction Beautiful Star and the surreal satire on modern times Life for [...] than half a century since his shocking suicide, Exquisite Nothingness aims to reposition Mishima's art at the centre of his controversial legacy, acclaiming its depth, beauty and devastating emotional power.
Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a sensationalist, a militarist, a self-publicist, a contrarian, a charlatan, a joker, a poser, a paradox and a hypocrite - but he was also a literary genius. Nominated several times for the Nobel Prize, his work remains one of the cornerstones of twentieth-century Japanese literature, an enduring, provocative and disturbing force probing the strangeness and fragility of our existence in a violent, unpredictable [...] Exquisite Nothingness: The Novels of Yukio Mishima, David Vernon explores the full range of Mishima's achievement, with a chapter devoted to each of his major novels, including established classics like Confessions of a Mask, Thirst for Love, Forbidden Colours, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and the vast final quartet The Sea of Fertility, as well as startling works only recently available to English readers: the captivating anti-nuclear science fiction Beautiful Star and the surreal satire on modern times Life for [...] than half a century since his shocking suicide, Exquisite Nothingness aims to reposition Mishima's art at the centre of his controversial legacy, acclaiming its depth, beauty and devastating emotional power.
Über den Autor
Dr David Vernon is a writer and academic. He studied at Trinity College, University of Oxford, before teaching language and literature in China and Japan. After returning to Europe, he completed his doctorate on Shakespeare's tragicomedies in Berlin and taught English literature for many years in London. He has written extensively on classical music and literature, and his first five books, Disturbing the Universe: Wagner's Musikdrama, Beauty and Sadness: Mahler's 11 Symphonies, Ada to Zembla: The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov, Beethoven: The String Quartets, and Sun Forest Lake: The Symphonies & Tone Poems of Jean Sibelius, were published to critical acclaim. He lives in the Highlandsof Scotland.
