First published 1915
In medieval Japan, a priest suffers under the burden of his impossibly long nose, desperately seeking ways to shrink it while facing the mockery of others. Shoguns navigate political intrigue, vagrants wander through morally inverted landscapes, and peasants struggle for survival in stories where right and wrong blur beyond recognition. Akutagawa draws readers into worlds where a single purple spark might be worth a life, where loyalty becomes a trap, and where the line between sanity and madness dissolves. His later works turn inward, chronicling a man's descent into melancholy and his growing terror of losing his mind. These autobiographical pieces reveal the author's own psychological unraveling through impressionistic fragments that capture fleeting moments of beauty and despair. The collection spans famous tales that inspired Kurosawa's films alongside lesser-known works, some appearing in English for the first time, painting a complete picture of Japan's modernist master and his unflinching examination of human nature.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, japanese-literature, asian-american
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: psychological-horror, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Japan, Medieval Japan
Period: Medieval, 20th Century
320 pages · Paperback · Penguin
Content warnings: mental-illness