After the Banquet

Dec 25, 2025 1:04 AM

Author:Yukio Mishima

After the Banquet

For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness. But when the she falls in love with one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit, and 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.

Reviews

Kazu is the biggest and most profound thing Mishima has done so far in an already distinguished career

—— New Yorker

His most novelistic work, with a degree of earthiness and warmth rare in his fiction

—— New York Times

Japan's foremost man of letters

—— Spectator

Direct yet allusive, poetic...an amazing feat

—— Atlantic

A worthy sequel... A touching love song to the possibilities and limits of friendship. Charming, funny and sly, Porno is a good poke at all kinds of pretence and moral tidiness

—— Evening Standard

Captures and celebrates the hangover of youth

—— Observer

It was brilliant

—— Observer

Gripping

—— Glamour

A great thriller and a stirring love story

—— Grazia

A gripping narrative and a compelling lead character... This is an absorbing and accomplished novel

—— LittleReaderLibrary

A very human Cold War thriller

—— Good Housekeeping

Rooney is a novelist at home with life’s ambiguities, her plotting pleasingly intricate, her narrative richly textured

—— Lucy Beresford , Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

A captivating read

—— Choice

An exciting and intelligent novel... Rooney's re-creation of the politics of the day is brilliant

—— Kate Saunders , The Times

Particulary acute on the muddle of emotion, reason and morality that festers around betrayal...compelling, impressively detailed story, with thrillerish overtones...

—— Elizabeth Buchan , The Sunday Times

A wonderfully plotted spy drama full of intrigue and suspense… A fantastic read

—— UK Regional Press Syndication

Extremely readable

—— Mark Perryman , Hufffington Post

A brilliant spy novel, with an unlikely culprit and a deft, involving plot... Tense, beautifully pitched and very moving

—— Marie Claire

[A] polished, intricate novel… rich in moral ambiguity

—— Sunday Telegraph

This powerfully-written spy thriller is compulsive reading

—— Falkirk Herald

A gripping spy novel with an unlikely culprit and a thoroughly researched basis in fact... Perfect for fans of William Boyd's Restless

—— Absolutely Chelsea

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