Forbidden Colors (禁色, Kinjiki?) is a 1951 novel (禁色 Part 2 秘楽 (Higyō?) "Secret Pleasure" was published in 1953) by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, translated into English in 1968. The name kinjiki is a euphemism for homosexuality. 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 which were forbidden to be worn by people of various ranks in the Japanese court. It describes a marriage of a gay man to a young woman. Like Mishima's earlier novel Confessions of a Mask, it is generally considered somewhat autobiographical.
Read more about Forbidden Colors: Themes, Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words forbidden and/or colors:
“We take no pleasure in permitted joys,
But what’s forbidden is more keenly sought.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“Language as a real thing is not imitation either of sounds or colors or emotions it is an intellectual recreation and there is no possible doubt about it and it is going to go on being that as long as humanity is anything.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)