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 to mixed critical response. Mishima was considered for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times and was a favorite of many foreign publications. However, in 1968 his early mentor Kawabata won the Nobel Prize and Mishima realized that the chances of it being given to another Japanese author in the near future were slim. In a work published in 1970, Mishima wrote that the writers he paid most attention to in modern western literature were Georges Bataille, Pierre Klossowski, and Witold Gombrowicz. Mishima was also an actor, and had a starring role in Yasuzo Masumura's 1960 film, "Afraid to Die".