After the Banquet

With vast psychological acuity and an unblinking insight into the nature of political and domestic warfare, Yukio Mishima creates a portrait of a marriage in which lofty principles clash fatally with appetite and ambition. For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness. But when the middle-aged entrepreneur falls in love with one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, she renounces her business in order to become his wife.In time, however, the restless Kazu decides to resurrect her husband's political career. In doing so, she embarks on a series of compromises and evasions that will force her to choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. With its subtle ambiguities and its complex, vibrant heroine, After the Banquet is a magnificent novel.