Written when Mishima was only twenty-six, Forbidden Colors is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love...

Written when Mishima was only twenty-six, Forbidden Colors is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love. As in Mann's Death in Venice, the older man's longing for the beauty of youth is associated with aestheticism and death.