Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea: Yukio Mishima - Softcover

"Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century" (The Times)

"Explores the viciousness that lies beneath what we imagine to be innocence" (Independent)

"Told with Mishima's fierce attention to naturalistic detail, the grisly tale becomes painfully convincing and yields a richness of psychological and mythic truth" (Sunday Times)

"Coolly exact with his characters and their honourable motives. His aim is to make the destruction of the sailor by his love seem as inevitable as the ocean" (Guardian)

"Mishima's imagery is as artful as a Japanese flower arrangement" (New York Times)

TRANSLATED BY JOHN NATHAN

'A major work of art' Time

A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this disillusionment as an act of betrayal on his part - their retribution is deliberate and horrifying.

See also: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion