The Sound of Waves

On a small, isolated island off the coast of Japan, a young fisherman named Shinji falls in love with Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of the island’s wealthiest man. Their love is real, innocent, and tested by class difference, jealousy, and everything that island society can throw at it. Can they find a way to be together?

Unlike anything else in Mishima’s work, The Sound of Waves is radiant with warmth and natural beauty. The island lives and breathes on every page — the cold sea, the lighthouse, the rhythms of fishing and diving — rendered with a clarity that feels like sunlight on water. Inspired by the ancient Greek romance Daphnis and Chloe, it is a story as old as storytelling itself, and Mishima tells it with a grace that makes it feel completely fresh.

This is the perfect Mishima for readers new to his work: accessible, beautiful, and deeply moving without the darkness that characterises his more famous novels. But there is also, beneath its lyricism, the same perfect formal control that marks everything he wrote. A quiet masterpiece from one of the twentieth century’s great writers. Published by Vintage.