Voices of the Fallen Heroes

Voices of the Fallen Heroes

And Other Stories

About the Book

A new selection of 14 of Yukio Mishima's best short stories from the 1960s—his final decade—Voices of the Fallen Heroes offers a unique glimpse into the mind of one of Japan’s greatest writers. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.

In the title story, "Voices of the Fallen Heroes," a séance brings forth the spirits of young officers in the Imperial Army and the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who reproach the Emperor and mourn Japan’s modern decline. In another, Mishima recounts the true story of the time a deranged fan broke into his home at dawn, insisting on meeting the author and imploring him to "tell the truth." Elsewhere, a beautiful youth achieves eternal life through violent murder, and an ill-matched couple seal their fate with a pack of cards, tangled in the web of time and unfulfilled desire.

Available in English for the first time, and carefully selected by a team of expert translators, these captivating stories serve as the perfect introduction to Mishima's work, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
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Vintage International Series

The Thinking Heart
Voices of the Fallen Heroes
Of Human Bondage
Giovanni's Room (Deluxe Edition)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (Deluxe Edition)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Deluxe Edition)
Answered Prayers
The Rainbow
Caligula and Three Other Plays
Mosquitoes
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About the Author

Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944, and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death, he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, The Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention. More by Yukio Mishima
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Random House Publishing Group