Keko's house
14.99 €
In stock
Keko's house
14.99 €
Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a star of 20th-century literature, the world's most widely read Japanese author, a man of brilliant talent who became famous both for his works of the widest range and variety of genres (novels, plays, short stories, essays) and for his stunning biography (obsession with bodybuilding, extreme right-wing political leanings, hara-kiri after a failed attempt at a monarchical coup). "Kyoko's House" is the story of four young people, regulars at the salon (or temple members) where the mistress (or priestess) Kyoko reigns supreme. These four are four facets of the author himself: a finely sensitive innocent artist; an energetic boxer obsessed with sports; an unclaimed narcissistic actor mesmerized by his beauty; and a businessman who, pretending to be a careerist, professes nihilism, despises reality and believes in the inevitable end of the world. And with them Kyoko is their mirror, their guide through the hell of modernity, the mistress of the house where they all find shelter and can open their souls. It is the first half of the 1950s - the post-war period in Japan is over, prosperity is already taking root and gradually sprouting from the devastation, but all five do not trust modernity and, looking from Kyoko's balcony, see only ruins. The new era is a wall, a dead end, "a giant gap, shapeless and colorless, like the reflection of a summer sky in a mirror," as the critics wrote; a decade and a half later, the same intonation will sound in Hubert Selby, Jr. The four guests and Kyoko briefly find success, but success is inevitably followed by downfall, disappointment, and death. One day, the doors of Kyoko's house will close. The end of the world is imminent. We are all still living on the threshold of it. The translation of this novel into English is eagerly awaited by fans to this day, and we are publishing it in Russian for the first time.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series Foreign Literature. Big books