Actor director founder model playwright author
Yukio Mishima was born on the 14th of January, 1925 in Tokyo, Japan. His father was Azusa Hiraoka, a government official, and his mother, Shizue, was the daughter of the 5th principal of the Kaisei Academy. Mishima's paternal grandparents were Sadataro Hiraoka and Natsuko Hiraoka. He had a younger sister, Mitsuko, who died of typhus in 1945 at the age of 17, and a younger brother, Chiyuki.
Yukio Mishima studied at Tokyo University in 1947.
Yukio Mishima worked for about six months with the Ministry of Finance but resigned to devote himself to writing. Mishima wrote novels, popular serial novellas, short stories and literary essays, as well as highly acclaimed plays for the Kabuki theater and modern versions of traditional Noh drama. Mishima began the short story Misaki nite no Monogatari, A Story at the Cape, in 1945, and continued to work on it through the end of World War II. In January 1946, he visited famed writer Yasunari Kawabata in Kamakura, taking with him the manuscripts for Chusei and Tabako, and asking for Kawabata's advice and assistance. In June 1946, following Kawabata's recommendations, Tabako was published in the new literary magazine Ningen (Humanity).
Also in 1946, Mishima began his first novel, Tozoku (Thieves), a story about two young members of the aristocracy drawn towards suicide. It was published in 1948, placing Mishima in the ranks of the Second Generation of Postwar Writers. He followed with Confessions of a Mask, a semi-autobiographical account of a young homosexual who must hide behind a mask in order to fit into society. In 1949, Mishima published a series of essays in Kindai Bungaku on Yasunari Kawabata, for whom he had always had a deep appreciation.
Yukio Mishima was considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 but the award went to his countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His writing gained him an international celebrity and a sizable following in Europe and the United States, as many of his most famous works were translated into English.
Yukio Mishima was a member of the Japan Pen Club.
Yukio was married to Yoko Mishima.
