Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

Descriere

Ryunosuke 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. ""Rashomon"" 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.