Cover of Life for Sale

Life for Sale

by Yukio Mishima, Stephen Dodd

3.9
(31 ratings)
384 pages1968Penguin Books, LimitedISBN 9780241333143
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About this book

After botching a suicide attempt, salaryman Hanio Yamada decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper. Soon interested parties come calling with increasingly bizarre requests and what follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots—even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can't seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the cross hairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate. By turns wildly inventive, darkly comedic, and deeply surreal, in Life for Sale Yukio Mishima stunningly uses satire to explore the same dark themes that preoccupied him throughout his lifetime.

Publication Details

Publisher
Penguin Books, Limited
Published
1968
Pages
384
ISBN
9780241333143
Language
en

About Yukio Mishima

Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake; 14 January 1925 – 25 November 1970), known by his pen name Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio), was a Japanese writer, playwright, actor, martial artist, model, and the leader of an attempted coup d'état that culminated in his ritual suicide by *seppuku.* Mishima is considered one of the most important postwar stylists of the Japanese language. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times in the 1960s. His works include the novels *Confessions of a Mask* and *The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,* and the autobiographical essay *Sun and Steel.* Mishima's political activities made him a controversial figure. From his mid-30s onwards, his far-right ideology and reactionary beliefs became increasingly evident. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima

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