Damian Flanagan is a writer and critic. He is an expert in Japanese Literature, but has a wide range of interests in the arts, social politics and the media. He wrote his first book, a controversial study of Japan's greatest modern author Natsume Soseki, in Japanese. His second book (The Tower of London and other stories, 2005) told the story of Soseki's experiences in Britain and won the US-Japan Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. His third book, again in Japanese, was Natsume Soseki: Superstar of World Literature (2007). He has also contributed lengthy critical introductions to recent editions of Soseki's masterpieces, The Three Cornered World, The Gate and Kokoro as well as to Shusaku Endo's novel Scandal. His latest book is a biography of Yukio Mishima, the most internationally renowned Japanese author of the 20th century, offering a radically new analysis of an iconic figure.