932 words
Spanish translation here
Yukio Mishima was one of the giants of 20th-century Japanese literature. He has exercised an enduring influence on the post-World War II European and North American New Right. In commemoration of his birth, I wish to draw your attention to the following works on this website: (more…)
Archie Lee shares a bottle of liquor with one of his employees in Baby Doll (1956).
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In a recent essay about playwright Tennessee Williams and Greek-American director Elia Kazan’s flagrantly anti-Southern motion picture Baby Doll (1956), I observed in passing that blacks are present as furniture, but there is no major subplot involving them. (more…)
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Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) was one of the giants of Japanese letters as well as an outspoken Right-wing nationalist. Mishima shocked the world on November 25, 1970, when he and members of his private militia, the Tatenokai or Shield Society, took hostage the commander of the Japan Self-Defense Force’s Ichigaya Camp. Mishima then delivered a speech to the assembled soldiers and press, exhorting the Japanese to turn away from American-imposed consumerism back to their traditional aristocratic culture, which prized honor above life and comfort. (more…)
948 words
Spanish translation here
Yukio Mishima was one of the giants of 20th-century Japanese literature. He has exercised an enduring influence on the post-World War II European and North American New Right. In commemoration of his birth, I wish to draw your attention to the following works on this website:
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In post-1945 Japan — as in most of the states that lost in World War II — American occupation brought about radical political and social changes. In the 1946 to 1948 Tokyo trial (similar to Nuremberg), several leaders of the war cabinet were sentenced to death or long prison terms. It was also stipulated in the constitution that Japan cannot have its own armed forces, only Jieitai (Japan Self Defense Forces), a small number of volunteers for self-defense purposes. (more…)
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In the latest episode of Guide to Kulchur, Greg Johnson, Guillaume Durocher, and Ty E join Fróði Midjord to discuss the life and art of Yukio Mishima. On November 25th, 50 years ago, Mishima committed ritual suicide to inspire the Japanese to return to their aristocratic honor culture.
The episode is archived on BitChute (video) and Spreaker (audio only). Guide to Kulchur streams live on DLive every Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time / 20:00 CET.
(more…)
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It was fifty years ago today that Yukio Mishima, one of Japan’s most celebrated men of letters and an ardent man of the Right, committed suicide at the age of forty-five. What happened, and what did it mean?
On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four followers wearing the uniforms of his private militia group the Shield Society (Tatenokai) visited the Ichigaya Barracks of the Japan Self-Defense Force (the Jieitai). (more…)
798 words
Spanish translation here
Yukio Mishima was one of the giants of 20th-century Japanese literature. He has exercised an enduring influence on the post-World War II European and North American New Right. In commemoration of his birth, I wish to draw your attention to the following works on this website: (more…)
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Yukio Mishima’s 1963 novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is one of his darkest works. Set in post-War Yokohama, it is the story of Fusako Kuroda, a thirty-three-year-old widow who runs a boutique selling Western luxury goods, and her thirteen-year-old son Noboru Kuroda. (See Alex Graham’s discussion of the novel here.)
Fusako’s world is entirely feminine, bourgeois, modern, and Western. She is also deeply lonely. Then she meets Ryuji Tsukazaki, the second-mate on a steamship. (more…)
Banana Yoshimoto and Yukio Mishima.
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Banana Yoshimoto
Kitchen
Translated by Megan Backus
London: Faber and Faber, 1993
Yukio Mishima
Thirst for Love
Translated by Alfred H. Marks
New York: Random House, 1999 (more…)
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Yukio Mishima, one of the Right’s most celebrated authors, took part in a debate at the University of Tokyo in 1969 with members of the radical Left-wing student group Zenkyoto. The debate was filmed, (more…)
