The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on Hagakure in Modern Life

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Three years before his ritual suicide, Mishima published his personal commentary on the Hagakure — the eighteenth-century samurai treatise that argues a warrior's highest purpose is found in the readiness for death. Mishima reads the text not as historical curiosity but as a living philosophy, arguing for its relevance to modern life with the intensity of a man who means to practice what he preaches. The book is part literary criticism, part spiritual autobiography, and part manifesto — revealing the intellectual framework behind Mishima's fiction and, eventually, his final act. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, the clarity and passion of the argument are undeniable. A writer's guide to a philosophy of death — written by the man who would make it autobiography.