One of modern Japan's defining literary voices, in a new English translation.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) lived only thirty-five years, yet in barely a decade of mature work he became one of the foundational figures of modern Japanese literature — admired by Natsume Sōseki, mourned by a nation, and remembered today in the prize that bears his name.Ten Masterworks gathers ten of his most celebrated short stories in a fresh translation made directly from the Japanese, arranged to give the reader the full arc of his career in roughly 50,000 words.
The collection includes:
- The Spider's Thread — a Buddhist parable on mercy and selfishness
The Nose — the story that brought Akutagawa to Sōseki's attention
Rashōmon — survival and moral collapse beneath a ruined Heian gate
Yam Gruel — a humble bureaucrat and the secret weight of a small wish
Tu Tze-chun — a Tang-dynasty fable on the limits of immortality
Hell Screen — a sustained meditation on art, cruelty, and the cost of seeing too clearly
In a Grove — the celebrated tale of a single killing told by seven irreconcilable voices, fused by Kurosawa with Rashōmon for his 1950 film
The Ball — an evening at the Rokumeikan, recovered as both spectacle and elegy
Kappa — a satirical novella narrated from a mental hospital, projecting Akutagawa's anxieties about modern Japan onto an underground civilization of river-spirits
The Life of a Stupid Man — fifty-one numbered fragments completed weeks before his suicide; the document of a mind taking its own measure for the last time
A new foreword traces Akutagawa's life, the position of each story within his work, and the principles guiding the translation. Editorial notes follow only where they clarify; the stories are otherwise allowed to speak for themselves.
Translated from the Japanese by Clayton Maris.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Ten Masterworks