
For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness - then she falls in love.
The man is one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, and she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit. Eventually Kazu must choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. After the Banquet is a magnificent portrait of political and domestic warfare and love in later life.
'An exquisitely paced high comedy at once characterized by humor and restraint...features a magnificently ebullient heroine as she embarks upon one more adventure in love' Kirkus
‘[Mishima's] most novelistic work, with a degree of earthiness and warmth rare in his fiction’ New York Times
Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威), a Japanese author, poet and playwright, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku. At age six, Mishima enrolled in elite Peers School (Gakushuin 学習院). At 12, Mishima began to write his first stories. He read voraciously the works of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and numerous classic Japanese authors. After six years at school, he became the youngest member of the editorial board in its literary society. Mishima was attracted to the works of Tachihara Michizō, which in turn created an appreciation for the classical form of the waka. Mishima's first published works included waka poetry, before he turned his attention to prose. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima

For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness - then she falls in love.
The man is one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, and she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit. Eventually Kazu must choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. After the Banquet is a magnificent portrait of political and domestic warfare and love in later life.
'An exquisitely paced high comedy at once characterized by humor and restraint...features a magnificently ebullient heroine as she embarks upon one more adventure in love' Kirkus
‘[Mishima's] most novelistic work, with a degree of earthiness and warmth rare in his fiction’ New York Times
Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威), a Japanese author, poet and playwright, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku. At age six, Mishima enrolled in elite Peers School (Gakushuin 学習院). At 12, Mishima began to write his first stories. He read voraciously the works of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and numerous classic Japanese authors. After six years at school, he became the youngest member of the editorial board in its literary society. Mishima was attracted to the works of Tachihara Michizō, which in turn created an appreciation for the classical form of the waka. Mishima's first published works included waka poetry, before he turned his attention to prose. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima