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Life for Sale

Yukio Mishima author Stephen Dodd translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:4th Feb '21

Should be back in stock very soon

Life for Sale cover

'The best book I've read this year ... darkly comedic and full of tension and surprise' Marina Abramovic

'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.'


When Hanio Yamada realises the future holds little of worth to him, he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper, thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits. A world of murderous mobsters, hidden cameras, a vampire woman, poisoned carrots, code-breaking, a hopeless junkie heiress and makeshift explosives reveals itself to the unwitting hero. Is there nothing he can do to stop it? Resolving to follow the orders of his would-be purchasers, he comes to understand what life is worth, and whether we can indeed name our price.

Yields a rare glimpse of the pulp-fiction flipside that partnered the rhapsodic and mystical Mishima... grotesque, melodramatic, spectacular, utterly silly * The Times *
It's funny and horrific and curious and thoroughly entertaining and should win Mishima a new generation of fans * The Independent *
There is a place in life for the exhilarating, surreal and sometimes downright silly. This novel ticks all the boxes * Spectator *
Succeeds in capturing vividly the bathos of the self-pitying modern nihilist... the absurdity of life is conveyed through the tropes of pulp fiction and manga comics * The New Statesman *
An engaging all-action satire * The Guardian *
A writer of immense energy and ability * Time Out *

ISBN: 9780241333150

Dimensions: 197mm x 128mm x 11mm

Weight: 146g

192 pages