Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend

Description

The stunning book from Christopher Ross, Sunday Times top 10 bestselling author of 'Tunnel Visions'. In 1970 Japan's most famous writer, Yukio Mishima, cut open his stomach and was then beheaded with his own antique sword. His anachronistic suicide has been called many things: a desperate heroic gesture; a work of art; a political protest; the antics of a madman. But which is correct? And what became of Mishima's sword? Thirty years later Christopher Ross sets out for Japan on the trail of those who might have answers: craftsmen and critics; soldiers and swordsmen; boyfriends and biographers; even the man who taught Mishima hara-kiri. Like his best-selling 'Tunnel Visions: Journeys of an Underground Philosopher', Christopher Ross has written another unclassifiable blend of travel writing, autobiography and philosophical enquiry to create a mesmeric account of modern Japan and the peculiar death that haunts it to this day.

Christopher Ross travelled to Japan in 1991 and ended up staying for nearly five years. Here he studied Japanese language and contemporary literature, and took up aikido. He also worked as an English teacher, model and television actor, appearing in numerous commercials and in a popular Japanese historical soap opera. Ross is the author of Tunnel Visions (2002), a bestseller, and Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend (2005). Christopher Ross is now a full-time author and lives in Paris.

'(Ross's) digressive reflections on his quest are personal, pertinent and philosophical: he gives a vivid picture of a Japan still haunted by nostalgia and nationalism.' The Times 'Entertaining, deftly written and wise!a very good book. Its achievement is that not only does it make the reader learn, it makes the reader think.' Daily Telegraph 'An engaging patchwork of a book, a blend of cultural history, memoir, travelogue and philosophical rumination.' Hari Kunzru, Sunday Telegraph '"Mishima's Sword" resembles a bento, those beautiful lacquered lunch boxes in which delicacies nestle side by side in separate compartments, each a feast in miniature.' New Statesman 'A fascinating read.' Arena Magazine 'Ross is a very likeable narrator, his tone one of respectful curiosity but never superiority!an enjoyable and idiosyncratic look at Japan and one of it's most notorious sons.' The Irish Times 'Ross's book, lucid, readable and touched with sly humour, has put Mishima back together again in all his angry, screwed-up absurdity.' Jonathan Keates 'Highly original travelogue inspired by the life and death of the writer Yukio Mishima. Ross recounts his own engaging ventures in Japan as he attempts to track down the samurai sword with which Mishima was beheaded in 1970.' GQ