Imprint Journal

Desire, power, and control — Yukio Mishima lived inside the obsessions that filled his novels. In Eikoh Hosoe’s Ordeal by Roses, Mishima becomes his own creation: bound, mythologized, consumed. But who, in the end, held the power?

Simone de Beauvoir, Jack Kerouac, Yukio Mishima, and others didn’t just write—they redefined culture. Their ideas on feminism, rebellion, aesthetics, and the unconscious continue to shape literature, art, and contemporary thought.

Embark on an olfactory odyssey as you delve into the poetic evolution of “On the Road.” In this piece narrated by Erik Dellums, each scent note unfolds like a verse in an ever-changing ballad.

Literary history often favours the neatly canonized, but true innovation comes from those who disrupt and defy conventions. They are the writers who pushed boundaries—challenging norms, reshaping genres, and influencing generations while remaining on the fringes. From Pauline Réage’s subversive eroticism to Joris-Karl Huysman's restless decadent descriptions of the artifice, these rebels remind us that literature thrives on rebellion.

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness forces us to question whether the real savagery lies in the jungle—or in the so-called civilized world. His stark imagery refuses to let us look away from the darkness, not just in the Congo, but in ourselves.

What can a book become? A song? A film? Another book? Or a niche perfume? As Imprint launches Against Nature, Dino Bonačić looks at the influence of the obscure novel that defined a most decadent movement.

Cities have their own scents—Paris is ink and absinthe, New York is asphalt and ambition, Tokyo is cherry blossoms and neon-lit rain. Literature captures these invisible signatures, making scent an overlooked but powerful form of storytelling. What if we mapped the world not by streets, but by the way it smells?

Nicola Hicks’ sculptures capture the raw tension between fragility and ferocity, bringing myth and nature to life.