Forbidden Colours by Mishima, Yukio

Author: Mishima, Yukio

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 2 October 2008 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of ‘the Penguin Modern Classics’ series.

Paperback | 432 pages
196 x 131 x 26 | 322g

Written when Mishima was only twentysix, Forbidden Colors is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love. As in Mann’s Death in Venice, the older man’s longing for the beauty of youth is associated with aestheticism and death.