Fountains in the Rain

A young man is breaking up with a girl for the first time in his life, and, finding himself in an unfamiliar role, he strives to feel the taste of power all the way to the end. Another young man in a university sports club dreams of taking his mastery of the sword to the limit. A young shepherd boy sees Jesus Christ—and the boy leads the children on a crusade. For years, a modest housekeeper silently adores a university professor and poet, and one day he invites her on a pilgrimage through Buddhist temples, where the reason for her lifelong ache is finally revealed to her…

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) is one of the key figures of 20th-century literature, the most widely read Japanese writer in the world, and the author of works on a rare scale—spanning many forms, from novels and plays to stories and essays. Just as striking is his biography: his interest in bodybuilding, ultra-right views, and his seppuku after a failed attempt at a monarchist coup. “The Fountains Under the Rain” is a collection of stories by an insightful and merciless observer: a mosaic of everyday and dark human passions—hunger for power, self-admiration, machismo, vulnerability, and fear of looking inward.

Nearly all of the texts in this collection are being published in Russian for the first time.