The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3 [Paperback]

Yukio Mishima’sThe Temple of Dawnis the third novel in his masterful tetralogy,The Sea of Fertility. Here, Shigekuni Honda continues his pursuit of the successive reincarnations of Kiyoaki Matsugae, his childhood friend.
 
Travelling in Thailand in the early 1940s, Shigekuni Honda, now a brilliant lawyer, is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is the reincarnated spirit of his friend Kiyoaki. As Honda goes to great lengths to discover for certain if his theory is correct,The Temple of Dawnbecomesthe story of one man’s obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment.“Surpassingly chilling, subtle and original.”
—The New York Times
 
“[Mishima’s]Sea of Fertilitytetralogy. . . shines ever more obviously as one of the great works of the last century.”
—William VollmanYukio Mishimawas born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book,The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author withConfessions of a Mask(1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement,The Sea of Fertilitytetralogy—which contains the novelsSpring Snow(1969),Runaway Horses(1969),The Temple of Dawn(1970), andThe Decay of the Angel(1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of 45 and the day after completing the last novel in theFertilityseries, Mishima committedseppuku(ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.US