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
Yahiko Mishima His death at his home in Meguro, Tokyo in 1954 was largely overlooked by the Japanese media. Yahiko Mishima Mishima was the son of Viscount Mishima Michitsune, an important official in the Meiji government of Japan. His elder brother, Yatarō Mishima was the 8th governor of the Bank of Japan. Mishima’s father died when he was two years old. He attended the Gakushuin Peer’s School, followed by Tokyo Imperial University, where he majored in law. However, Mishima’s talents lay in sports, and he was active in college baseball, judo, horseback riding, boating, sumo, and skating, participating in numerous competitions. His