This collection features a brilliant new translation of the Japanese master's stories, from the source for the movie Rashōmon to his later, more autobiographical writings.

Ryūnosuke 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. ‘Rashōmon’ 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.

A WORLD IN DECAY
- Rashōmon
- In a Bamboo Grove
- The Nose
- Dragon: The Old Potter's Tale
- The Spider Thread
- Hell Screen
UNDER THE SWORD
- Dr. Ogata Ryōsai: Memorandum
- O-Gin
- Loyalty
MODERN TRAGICOMEDY
- The Story of a Head That Fell Off
- Green Onions
- Horse Legs
AKUTAGAWA'S OWN STORY
- Daidōji Shinsuke: The Early Years
- The Writer's Craft
- The Baby's Sickness
- Death Register
- The Life of a Stupid Man
- Spinning Gears