Beauty, sexuality, death. Any reader who opens a Yukio Mishima ( 三島 由紀夫 ) novel will inevitably encounter these abstract subjects. Known for controversial works such as The Sound of Waves, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion , and The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, Mishima was a novelist with uncompromising ethics and a stalwart belief in right-winged, nationalist ideals. His writings are sometimes considered emotionally barren and overtly intellectual, distancing the reader from the authorial voice. Forbidden Colours ( 禁色 , 1951-3) is that exception, where the reader, if he chooses to, can almost hear Mishima himself meditate on the power of absolute beauty and the bane of homosexuality in post-war Japan. The novel’s two main protagonists, Shunsuke (an aged misogynistic, heterosexual writer) and Yuichi (a guileless homosexual youth blessed with unparalleled beauty), are the driving forces behind the intriguing plot, which finds Shunsuke, towards the end of an illustrious li...