The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Vintage Classics)

A tale of youth and warped masculinity, this is the suspenseful, lyrical and page-turning Japanese classic.

A band of thirteen-year-old boys reject the stupidity of the adult world. They decide it is illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call ‘objectivity’. 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 – and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying.

‘Mishima’s greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century’ The Times

TRANSLATED BY JOHN NATHAN

MEDIA REVIEWS

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