The first novel of Mishima's landmark tetralogy, The Sea of fertility Spring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power. Among this rising new elite are the ambitious Matsugae, whose son has been raised in a family of the waning aristocracy, the elegant and attenuated Ayakura. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new -- fiercely loving and hating the exquisite, spirited Ayakura Satoko. He suffers in psychic paralysis until the shock of her engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion, and leads to a love affair that is as doomed as it was inevitable. "Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses, like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities." -- Christian Science Monitor "[The Sea of Fertility] is a literary legacy on the scale of Proust's." -- National Review Translated from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher

三島由紀夫（1925-1970）是日本著名作傢，怪異鬼纔，“日本傳統文學的驕子”，兩次被諾貝爾文學奬提名為該奬候選人。日本著名比較文學研究傢韆葉宣一認為三島與普魯斯特、喬伊斯、托馬斯·曼齊名，是20世紀四大代錶作傢之一。美國的日本文學研究權威唐納德·金認為三島是“世界上無與倫比的天纔作傢”。

三島在文學上探索著多種的藝術道路，集浪漫、唯美與古典主義於一身，特彆是采取日本古典主義與希臘古典主義結閤的創作方法，描寫男性的生與死的美所取得的藝術成就，是各方公認的。在美學的追求上，三島著力於對深層心理的挖掘，從隱微的頹唐中探求人性的真實。

以生活為題材嚮藝術挑戰，以肉體為本嚮精神挑戰，這便是三島作品的真正意義。

三島主要代錶作品有《金閣寺》、《潮騷》、《假麵的告白》、《春雪》、《奔馬》、《禁色》、《鏡子之傢》等。