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  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241301197
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $22.99

Confessions of a Mask





The dawning of a young man's homosexual and sadistic desires

A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Each night he imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in Guido Reni's painting; the objects of our hero's desire are tortured, killed and maimed, over and over again each night in his private fantasies. He must hide his lust from a homophobic and stiflingly conventional Japan. Self-loathing and desperate, he begins acting out a love affair with the sister of a school friend, while grappling with his hidden desires under the shadow of a Japan under threat from World War Two.

  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241301197
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $22.99

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Praise for Confessions of a Mask

A terrific and astringent work of beauty... a work of art

Times Literary Supplement

A writer of immense energy and ability

Time Out

Mishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair

Christopher Isherwood

Never has a "confession" been freer from self-pity and emotional over-indulgence

Sunday Times
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