A Fool's Words: Thirteen Stories and Essays by Japan's Master Storyteller

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), "the Father of the Japanese short story," wrote 150 stories during his brief career and is widely acclaimed as Japan's greatest storyteller. This new anthology, published exactly a century after his death, includes fresh translations of well-known classics as well as never-before-translated works:

• A Fool's Words: Aphorisms and reflections on life and literature, full of imagination and insight; this is Akutagawa at his most quotable, and the first complete English translation of this essay
• The Parrot: During the cataclysmic Great Kanto Earthquake, a man escapes a fire with his granddaughter and a caged parrot; separated, he searches desperately for her as his own situation worsens--the first-ever English translation of this story
• The Piano: Another first-time English translation set in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake: the narrator discovers a piano amidst the ruins and seems to hear a single note; only later does he realize the sound is caused by something else
• The Faith of Wei Sheng: A retelling of an ancient Chinese tale of in which a man waits under a bridge for his beloved until the rising waters drown him; the narrator finds in the man's faith an image of his own life
• The Swamp: At an art exhibition, the narrator is captivated by a neglected painting of a swamp; and when another visitor mocks it as madness, he insists that it is nonetheless a masterpiece
• The Mirage: Two brief seaside occurrences--one by day, one by night--share an uncanny stillness that hovers at the edge of ordinary life
• Plus seven other fascinating essays and tales