Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

Written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa - one of Japan's foremost stylists and a modernist master whose short stories are marked by imagery, cynicism, beauty, and wild humour. His other works include: "Rashomon"; "In a Bamboo Grove"; "The Nose"; "O-Gin"; "Loyalty"; "Death Register"; "The Life of a Stupid Man"; and "Spinning Gears". 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.