Thirst for Love pre-Oedipal complex running through this and several other Mishima texts. "Thirst for Love" was translated into English by Alfred H. Marks (Alfred A. Knopf, 1969). On November 25, 1970, Mishima committed suicide. A paperback edition was released July 1971 from Berkley Books. "Ai no Kawaki" was made into a 1967 film with the same title, directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara, with Ruriko Asaoka playing Etsuko. Thirst for Love Thirst for Love (or 愛の渇き, Ai no Kawaki) is a 1950 novel by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The word "kawaki" literally means "thirst", but has a sense of parched dryness associated with
Yukio Mishima later, he formed the Tatenokai ("shield society"), a private militia composed primarily of young students who studied martial principles and physical discipline, and swore to protect the Emperor of Japan. Mishima trained them himself. However, under Mishima's ideology, the emperor was not necessarily the reigning Emperor, but rather the abstract essence of Japan. In "Eirei no Koe" ("Voices of the Heroic Dead"), Mishima denounced Emperor Hirohito for renouncing his claim of divinity after World War II, arguing that millions of Japanese had died in the war for their "living god" Emperor, and that the Showa Emperor's renouncing his divinity meant