> Skip to content
  • Published: 4 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241386705
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

The Frolic of the Beasts





Translated into English for the first time, a gripping novel about a love affair gone wrong

Set in rural Japan shortly after World War II, The Frolic of the Beasts tells the story of a strange and utterly absorbing love triangle between a former university student, Koji; his would-be mentor, the eminent literary critic Ippei Kusakado; and Ippei's beautiful, enigmatic wife, Yuko. When brought face-to-face with one of Ippei's many marital indiscretions, Koji finds his growing desire for Yuko compels him to action in a way that changes all three of their lives profoundly. Originally published in 1961 and now available in English for the first time, The Frolic of the Beasts is a haunting examination of the various guises we assume throughout our lives, and a tale of psychological self-entrapment, seduction, and violence.

  • Published: 4 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241386705
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

Also by Yukio Mishima

See all

Praise for The Frolic of the Beasts

Mishima was one of literature's great romantics, a tragedian with a heroic sensibility, an intellectual, an esthete, a man steeped in Western letters who toward the end of his life became a militant Japanese nationalist

New York Times

Mishima is the Japanese Hemingway

Life Magazine

A writer of immense energy and ability

Time Out

This morose little gem boasts its share of sensuous depravity

Wall Street Journal

A sexually and psychologically complex novel... in a honed translation by Andrew Clare

Damian Flanagan, TLS
penguin pop image
penguin pop image