Forbidden Colors

Forbidden Colors (禁色, Kinjiki) is a 1951 novel by Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, translated into English in 1968. A part two titled Higyō (秘楽, "Secret Pleasure") was published in 1953. The name kinjiki is a euphemism for same-sex love. The kanji 禁 means "forbidden", and 色 in this case means "erotic love", although it can also mean "color". The word kinjiki also means colors that were forbidden to be worn by people of various ranks in the Japanese court. It describes the marriage of a gay man to a young woman. Like Mishima's earlier novel Confessions of a Mask, it is generally considered somewhat autobiographical.