Yasunari Kawabata had Parkinson's disease), a possible illicit love affair, or the shock caused by the suicide of his friend Yukio Mishima in 1970. Unlike Mishima, Kawabata left no note, and since (again unlike Mishima) he had not discussed significantly in his writings the topic of taking his own life, his motives remain unclear. However, his Japanese biographer, Takeo Okuno, has related how he had nightmares about Mishima for two or three hundred nights in a row, and was incessantly haunted by the specter of Mishima. In a persistently depressed state of mind, he would tell friends during his last years that
Michiharu Mishima Michiharu Mishima Mishima was born in Azabu, Tōkyō, to an aristocratic family. His grandfather Michitsune Mishima had been ennobled as a viscount in the new Japanese nobility in 1884, while his father was Yatarō Mishima, the 8th Governor of the Bank of Japan. His mother was Marquis Takauta Shijō (四条 隆謌 "Shijō Takauta")'s third daughter, Kaneko (加根子), through whom he was related to the old court aristocracy and the greater Fujiwara clan. His younger sister was married to Yoshi Hijikata. He was a Peers School graduate, and succeeded his father as the third Viscount Mishima in 1919. Mishima was a