Death in Midsummer

'It was the height of summer, and there was anger in the rays of the sun'

A summer holiday that turns to tragedy; a moonlit journey to fulfil a wish; a couple's unusual way of making a living; a young lieutenant who ends his life; a night of infidelities. This selection contains nine short stories and one modern Noh play by one of Japan's greatest writers. Chosen by Mishima himself for translation, they are by turns tender and delicate, ironic and shocking, showing the strange pull between duty and desire, death and beauty.