Richard Appignanesi interesting and Mr. Appignanesi's descriptive skills are considerable." Almost two decades later Appignanesi published "Yukio Mishima’s Report to the Emperor", a fictional autobiography of the Japanese poet, novelist, playwright, film director, actor and bodybuilder Yukio Mishima (1925 - 1970), one of the most important Japanese literary and artistic figures of the 20th century as well as an extreme-right activist. Appignanesi's novel is set predominantly in post-World War II reconstruction Japan and in Benares, India. Its narrative builds up to Mishima's horrific ritual suicide by seppuku that accompanied his failed right-wing coup against the Japanese government. The novel explores some of
Yukio Mishima author Michizō Tachihara (1914–39), which in turn created an appreciation for classical Japanese poetry form of "waka". Mishima's first published works included "waka" poetry, before he turned his attention to prose. He was invited to write a short story for the Gakushūin literary magazine and submitted , a story in which the narrator describes the feeling that his ancestors somehow still live within him. Mishima's teachers were so impressed that they recommended the story to the prestigious literary magazine "Bungei-Bunka". The story makes use of the metaphors and aphorisms that later became his trademarks and was published in book form