"Akutagawa displays an insightful and keenly creative intelligence in prose so lucid its sophistication is hardly visible." —The Guardian

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 Mandarins: Irritation turns to epiphany in this story of an unwelcome fellow passenger on a steam train journey
• Cogwheels: An extended nightmare vision of the city of Tokyo, which Akutagawa travels through like a visitor to hell, unable to escape his demons
• The Life of an Idiot: A fragmented autobiography, depicting key moments in Akutagawa's life and artistic development from his book-loving youth until just before his suicide
• The Light of Creation: Nineteenth-century Japan comes to vivid life in this story of the novelist Kyokutei Bakin that gives indirect insight into Akutagawa's views on writing
• Ababababa: The story of a young Akutagawa and his fixation with a woman in his local store
• Plus seven other fascinating essays and tales

This is an absolute "must-have" for every serious fan of Japanese literature!