Mishima's Sword Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend

The stunning new book from Christopher Ross, "Sunday Times" top 10 bestselling author of "Tunnel Visions." On 25th November 1970, the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, in one last piece of theatre of a peculiar life, plunged a knife into his tightly muscled belly and stretched out his neck so that his friend Morita might cut off his head with a Samurai sword. His death, an act in the frontline of the spirit, has been interpreted as many things: a desire for heroism; an attempt at a form of beauty; a protest against an emasculated post-war Japan; the ultimate demonstration of sincerity; the performance of a madman. So who exactly was Mishima, why did he offer himself up? And what happened to that sword? Christopher Ross's own life overlaps with Mishima's: they were both weedy and picked on at school, both harbour a fascination with martial arts and the relationship between the body and the mind.