Yukio Mishima

Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake; 14 January 1925, 25 November 1970), known by his pen name Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio), was a Japanese writer, playwright, actor, martial artist, model, and the leader of an attempted coup d'état that culminated in his ritual suicide by seppuku. Mishima is considered one of the most important postwar stylists of the Japanese language. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times in the 1960s. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and…