PublishedPenguin Classics, September 2017 |
ISBN9780241301197 |
FormatSoftcover, 176 pages |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 0.9cm |
The dawning of a young man's homosexual and sadistic desires
A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Each night he imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in Guido Reni's painting; the objects of our hero's desire are tortured, killed and maimed, over and over again each night in his private fantasies. He must hide his lust from a homophobic and stiflingly conventional Japan. Self-loathing and desperate, he begins acting out a love affair with the sister of a school friend, while grappling with his hidden desires under the shadow of a Japan under threat from World War Two.
