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English
Tuttle
21 August 2018
"Ryunosuke Akutagawa rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential modern Japanese writers. He is known as ""the father of the Japanese short story"" and ""Rashomon"" is his best-known work. Presented with a new Introduction by Seiji Lippit, Rashomon and Other Stories is a collection of six popular works by the writer.

In a Grove: An iconic, contradictory tale of a samurai's murder near Kyoto told through three varying accounts. Rashomon: A masterless samurai contemplates a life of crime as he encounters an old woman at Kyoto's old Rashomon gate. Yam Gruel: A low-ranking court official laments his position all the while yearning for his favorite, yet humble, dish. The Martyr: During Japan's Christian missionary era, a boy is excommunicated for fathering an illegitimate child but not is all that it seems. Kesa and Morito: An adulterous couple plots to kill the woman's husband as the situation threatens to spin out of control. The Dragon: A priest concocts a prank involving a dragon but the tall tale begins to take on a life of its own.

The renowned Japanese director Akira Kurosawa based his iconic film Rashomon in part on Akutagawa's story of the same name. While Akutagawa set much of his work in medieval Japan, he often employed themes familiar to modern readers. This has never been more apparent than in the striking stories in this volume, all of which resonate today as strongly as they did when they were first published."

By:   ,
Foreword by:  
Introduction by:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Tuttle
Country of Publication:   Japan
Dimensions:   Height: 130mm,  Width: 203mm, 
ISBN:   9784805314630
ISBN 10:   480531463X
Pages:   128
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Ryunosuke Akutagawa was the author of over 100 short stories. Described as one of the best-read men of his generation, he received a degree in English Literature at Tokyo Imperial University and published translations of Anatole France and W.B. Yeats. In 1927, Ryunosuke Akutagawa committed suicide at the age of thirty-five. New Foreword by: Seiji M. Lippit is Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Topographies of Japanese Modernism and the editor of The Essential Akutagawa. He has written widely on 20th century Japanese literature and translated numerous works of fiction and criticism. Translated by: Howard Hibbett is Professor Emeritus of Japanese literature at Harvard University where he was Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies from 1985 to 1988. His publications include many translations and works on Japanese language and literature.

Reviews for Rashomon and Other Stories

Clear-eyed glimpses of human behavior in the extremities of poverty, stupidity, greed, vanity ... Story-telling of an unconventional sort, with most of the substance beneath the shining, enameled surface. -The New York Times Book Review There are enough Swiftian touches in Akutagawa to show his hatred of stupidity, greed, hypocrisy and the rising jingoism of the day. But Akutagawa's artistic integrity kept him from joining his contemporaries in the easy social criticism or naive introspection ... What he did was question the values of his society, dramatize the complexities of human psychology, and study, with a Zen taste for paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality. -Howard Hibbett, from the Introduction to Rashomon and Other Stories


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