Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

About the Book

A collectible hardcover edition of the best stories by the father of the Japanese short story—including the two that inspired Kurosawa's classic samurai film about the subjectivity of truth—featuring an introduction by Haruki Murakami

A Penguin Vitae Edition


Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is one of Japan's foremost stylists—a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty, and wild humor. "Rashōmon" and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Akira 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.

Penguin Vitae—loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”—is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.
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Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Series

The Whale Rider
No Longer Human
A Farewell to Arms
The Sound and the Fury
The Wizard of Oz
Orlando
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Monkey King
Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories
To the Lighthouse
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About the Author

Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Ryunosuke Akutagawa was a short-story writer, poet and essayist, and one of the first Japanese modernists translated into English. He was born in Tokyo in 1892, and began writing for student publications at the age of ten. He graduated from Tokyo University with an English Literature degree and worked as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1919. His mother had suffered a mental breakdown shortly after his birth and he was plagued by fear of inherited insanity all his life. He killed himself in 1927. More by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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About the Author

Haruki Murakami
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates. More by Haruki Murakami
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About the Author

Jay Rubin
Jay Rubin is well known for his translations of Haruki Murakami's works. He received his PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Chicago and is the Takashima Research Professor of Japanese Humanities at Harvard University. More by Jay Rubin
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