A shocking piece of pulp fiction from Yukio Mishima, Japan’s greatest writer…
Originally published in serial form, Life for Sale is a gripping and madcap tale that satirically explores the dark themes that interested Mishima throughout his life…
“I am selling my life. You can use me in any way you like. I am a 27-year-old man, and I guarantee the protection of your privacy and personal information”.
After a failed suicide attempt, 27-year-old advertising copywriter Hanio Yamada puts his life up for sale in a local newspaper. He is soon sought after by various clients, but as his requests become increasingly bizarre, his life turns into a detective story full of absurd events.
The Japan of Satılık Hayat is not the Japan of honorable warriors and impeccable manners that we encounter in many of the author’s books, but the Japan of the 1960s, Americanized, immersed in modernity, and gripped by a deep uncertainty. In this book, which was published in serial form at the time and differs from his other texts in subject matter and style, Mishima deals in a strikingly satirical way with the dark themes that preoccupied him throughout his life.
“A gripping, crazy story… What makes the book appealing is its lightness and strangeness.”
The New York Times
“Fascinating pulp fiction from one of [Japan’s] greatest literary figures…”
The Guardian
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YUKIO MİŞİMA, real name Hiraoka Kimitake. Born in 1925, he started writing his first stories as a child. At his father’s insistence, he studied law at the University of Tokyo. After graduating, he entered the civil service, where he worked for only one year. He resigned and devoted all his time to writing. Bir Maskenin İtirafları, which brought Mishima international fame in a short time, was published in 1948. He wrote numerous novels, popular series of novels, short stories, essays, and literary criticism, as well as contemporary texts for kabuki theater and traditional no plays. Considered the most important writer in contemporary Japanese literature, Mishima committed suicide in 1970 at the height of his fame and prestige in a manner that would become the subject of books by writers such as Henry Miller (Reflections on the Death of Mishima) and Marguerite Yourcenar (Mişima ya da Boşluk Algısı).
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DEVRİM ÇETİN GÜVEN received her MA and PhD from the University of Tokyo. She specialized in Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe. Her academic research focused on the literary, artistic and intellectual interaction between Asia and Europe. In Japan, she wrote a comprehensive review of the first volume of the series “Kenzaburo Oe Bütün Romanları”” (2018), compiled by Ko-dansha Publishing House. He has translated works by Japanese writers and theorists such as Kojin Karatani, Takici Kobayashi, Kobo Abe, Yuiçi Seirai, Natsuki Ikezav, and Jun’ichiro Tanizaki into Turkish. He is currently a faculty member at Dokuz Eylül University, Department of Comparative Literature.
TITLE
Book Title: Satılık Hayat
Author: Yukio Mishima
Translation: Devrim Çetin Güven
Publisher: Can Yayınları
Series: Modern
Genre: Novel
Page Count: 240
