Yukio Mishima Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of so-called death poems before their entry into the headquarters. Mishima planned his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked "Tatenokai" members had any indication of what he was planning. His biographer, translator John Nathan, suggests that the coup attempt was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed. Mishima made sure his affairs were in order and left money for the legal defense of the three surviving "Tatenokai" members. Mishima's grave is located at the Tama
John Nathan of Tokyo, he spent many years living and studying in Japan. He is the author of a definitive biography of novelist Yukio Mishima and he has also translated novels by Mishima and by Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe. When Ōe received the Nobel Prize in 1994, Nathan accompanied him to Stockholm. Nathan was described by The Japan Times as "the one critic of Japanese literature that towers above the rest." John Nathan John Nathan (born 1940) is the translator of Japanese works written by celebrated authors such as Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburō Ōe. Nathan is also an Emmy-award winning producer, writer