Author · 1892–1927
芥川竜之介Akutagawa Ryūnosuke · あくたがわ りゅうのすけ
Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) was one of the most important writers of modern Japanese short fiction. Born in Tokyo, he studied English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, and his early story 鼻 (The Nose) won praise from Natsume Sōseki. Many of his works retell older Japanese and Chinese tales with modern psychological insight, including 羅生門 (Rashōmon) and 藪の中 (In a Grove), which later inspired Kurosawa Akira's film Rashomon. He died by suicide at the age of 35. The Akutagawa Prize was named in his honour by his friend Kikuchi Kan.
Stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke
鼻 — The Priest's Nose
Nose is a short, darkly comic tale about vanity and the gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us. Zenchi Naigu, a respected Buddhist priest at Ike-no-o, has a nose so long it hangs below his chin. He pretends not to care, but…
魔術 — The Sorcerer of Ōmori
"Magic" is a short fantastic tale by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, told in five brief parts. On a cold, rainy autumn night, the narrator takes a rickshaw to visit Matiram Misra, a young Indian patriot. Misra lives in a shabby Western-style house on…
羅生門 — Beneath the Rashōmon
Akutagawa's first major story, published in 1915 and drawn from a tale in the medieval collection Konjaku Monogatarishū, is a short, grim study of how a person talks himself into doing wrong. On a cold, rainy evening in a Kyōto ruined by…
白 — The Dog Called White
白 is a short fable-like tale by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke about a white dog named Shiro who, in a moment of fear, fails to warn his best friend Kuro about a dogcatcher. When he runs home, he finds that his own coat has turned completely black…
トロッコ — The Rail Cart
トロッコ is a short story told almost entirely from the viewpoint of an eight-year-old boy. Ryōhei lives in a village near the construction site of a light railway between Odawara and Atami, and he is fascinated by the small open carts the…
杜子春 — Toshishun and the Hermit of Mount Gabi
Toshishun is a short literary fairy tale by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, retold from a Tang-dynasty Chinese story and first written for the children's magazine Akai Tori. On a spring evening at the west gate of Rakuyō, a young man who has wasted…
藪の中 — Deep in the Thicket
Akutagawa's 藪の中 is a short crime story with no narrator, set in an earlier age of the capital. A samurai has been found dead in a remote thicket off the Yamashina road, and seven people give accounts of what happened: a woodcutter, a…
蜘蛛の糸 — A Thread of Spider Silk
"A Thread of Spider Silk" (蜘蛛の糸) is a short Buddhist fable by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, written in 1918 for the children's magazine Akai Tori. One morning the Buddha strolls beside the lotus pond of Paradise and looks down through the clear…
蜜柑 — Tangerines Thrown at Dusk
"Mikan" is a very short first-person sketch by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, set on a single train journey. On a cloudy winter evening, a tired and gloomy narrator sits in a second-class carriage leaving Yokosuka. A shabby country girl carrying a…
桃太郎 — The Boy from the Peach
Akutagawa's 桃太郎 is a satirical retelling of the folk tale every Japanese child knows: a boy born from a peach sets out with a dog, a monkey and a pheasant to conquer the island of the oni. Akutagawa wraps it in a mythic frame, with a giant…