Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan�s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. �Rashömon� and �In a Bamboo Grove� inspired Kurosawa�s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as �The Nose�, �O-Gin� and �Loyalty� paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as �Death Register�, �The Life of a Stupid Man� and �Spinning Gears�, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

Jeremy Wang

“I was filling the world of this story with supernatural beasts, one of which was becoming my own self-portrait.”

one of the more strongly autobiographical works in the tradition of the japanese i-novel. i honestly preferred the purely fictional stories more; the old potter’s tale and green onions were my personal favorites for their portrayal of pride and cunning. 

the pair of stories about early christianity in japan were quite interesting, especially when compared to endo’s silence. 

there’s a thread running through this collection, of akutagawa’s immense distaste for the world. it’s fought off at moments by beauty and poetry, most notably in daidoji shinsuke: the early years and the terse imagery in life of a stupid man, but altogether the impression is of a man who despises himself and can’t help but transfer his contempt to the world at large. i’ve been think about emerson’s self-reliance recently, and akutagawa more than any other “classical modern” japanese author seems to be possessed by the past. it seems to make his outlook on himself particularly bleak by offering a vast repository of references to which he may compare himself. in the end, i couldn’t help but think: i wish someone could tell him about christ! what freedom akutagawa would have felt upon receiving salvation. a hard but good read (tm).

Maxine Chen

This collection features a brilliant new translation of the Japanese master's stories with an introduction by Haruki Murakami. Akutagawa's disturbing tales of human passion capture the cultural upheaval of early twentieth century Japan, ranging from ?In the Grove,” the basis of Kurosawa's famous film Rashomon, to Akutagawa's later, more autobiographical writings.

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

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