Confessions of a Mask - Penguin Modern Classics

'There is in this world a kind of desire like stinging pain'

AJapanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Heimagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastianin the painting that obsesses him. Over and over again, each night inhis private fantasies, the objects of his lust are tortured, killed andmaimed. But, in the rigid world of imperial wartime Japan there is noplace for such transgressive desires. He must wear a false mask and hidehis true nature, whatever the cost.

'A terrific and astringent work of beauty' The Times Literary Supplement

'Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair' Christopher Isherwood

'Never has a "confession" been freer from self-pity' Sunday Times