Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

Author

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Original Work

Complete Works

Translator

Jay Rubin

Foreword / Afterword

Haruki Murakami

Language

English

Year

2006

Publisher

Penguin

Country

United Kingdom

Pages

268

ISBN

9780140449709

0000

Ryunosuke 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. "Rashomon" 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.— Google Books