Literature · Film · Activism · 1925–1970
Born: 14 January 1925 · Died: 25 November 1970 · Age at death: 45
Yukio Mishima died aged 45. He was born on 14 January 1925 and died on 25 November 1970.
Japanese novelist of Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion who died by ritual suicide after a failed coup
Did you know?He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on three separate occasions but never won.
Yukio Mishima was one of Japan's most celebrated and most unsettling writers. A sickly, bookish boy, he became a prolific novelist, playwright and essayist. Confessions of a Mask, about a young man hiding his homosexuality, made him famous at 24. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is often seen as his finest novel. He took up bodybuilding and martial arts and formed a private militia. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. In November 1970 he tried to stir an army coup in Tokyo. When it failed, he died by ritual suicide.
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 novelist, playwright, short story writer, actor, martial artist, model, and the leader of an attempted coup d'état that culminated in his seppuku.
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Profile
Japanese writer, 1925–1970
Yukio Mishima was born in Tokyo on 14 January 1925.
He wrote Confessions of a Mask in 1949.
He wrote The Temple of the Golden Pavilion in 1956.
He died in Tokyo on 25 November 1970, aged 45.
Career highlights
Did you know?Mishima was a pen name; he was born Kimitake Hiraoka.
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