Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the death of novelist Yukio Mishima, which shocked society. An exhibition focusing on the relationship between Mishima and Japan scholar Donald Keene, who died in February last year at 96, is being held at the municipal Chuo Toshokan library in Kita Ward, Tokyo.
Mishima, known for works such as "Kinkakuji" (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion), and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, arrived at a Ground Self-Defense Force post in the Ichigaya district of Tokyo on Nov. 25, 1970, along with several members of the Tatenokai, a private militia he had formed. After they locked themselves in a senior GSDF official's room, Mishima stepped out onto the balcony and made a speech to the Self-Defense Forces members who had gathered below. After he failed to persuade them to join his movement, Mishima committed seppuku ritual suicide through disembowelment. One of his Tatenokai followers administered the coup de grace, beheading him.
Keene, an American who many years later became a Japanese citizen, formed friendships with Junichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata and other writers representative of the postwar period and introduced their works to foreign countries. Keene also had a close relationship with Mishima.
According to his adopted son Seiki Keene, 70, Keene was invited to a hotel in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, where Mishima was staying in the summer immediately before the novelist's death. When he asked Mishima, who looked lost in thought beside a swimming pool, if he were worried about something, Mishima looked away.
Keene, who had mourned Mishima's death for a long time, told Seiki about that day many times and regretted it even in his later years, saying that he had been too insensitive.
The exhibition includes a photocopy of a letter from Mishima to Keene, sent by Mishima's family after his death. In it, Mishima asks Keene to help him publish a translated version of his last work, a series of four novels titled "Hojo no Umi" (The Sea of Fertility), and writes, "If you do so, I believe there will be a reader somewhere in the world who understands me."
The "Donarudo Kin to Mishima Yukio" exhibition was decided to be held in Kita Ward since Keene had lived there for a long time. Books that Mishima gave Keene and photos of the two are also on display.
The exhibition will run through Dec. 28. The library will be closed on Nov. 26, 30, Dec. 7 and 21. Admission is free.
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