Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Followers (1,487)

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Born

in Tokyo, Japan

March 01, 1892

Died

July 24, 1927

Genre

Short Stories

Influences

Natsume Sōseki, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Naoya Shiga, Guy ...more

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Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川龍之介) was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen.

Akutagawa was born in the Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川龍之介) was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen.

Akutagawa was born in the Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). Seven months after Akutagawa's birth, his mother went insane and he was adopted by her older brother, taking the Akutagawa family name. Despite the shadow this experience cast over Akutagawa's life, he benefited from the traditional literary atmosphere of his uncle's home, located in what had been the "downtown" section of Edo.

At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yūzō, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the journal Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every Thursday at the house of Natsume Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple.

The lapsed Shinshichō was revived yet again in 1916, and Sōseki lavished praise on Akutagawa's story Hana (The Nose) when it appeared in the first issue of that magazine. After graduating from Tokyo University, Akutagawa earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint. His overriding themes became the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art, themes that received expression in a number of brilliant, tightly organized short stories conventionally categorized as Edo-mono (stories set in the Edo period), ōchō-mono (stories set in the Heian period), Kirishitan-mono (stories dealing with premodern Christians in Japan), and kaika-mono (stories of the early Meiji period). The Edo-mono include Gesaku zanmai (A Life Devoted to Gesaku, 1917) and Kareno-shō (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ōchō-mono are perhaps best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hokōnin no shi (The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butōkai(The Ball, 1920).

Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka, becoming an employee of the Mainichi Shinbun. This period was a productive one, as has already been noted, and the success of stories like Mikan (Mandarin Oranges, 1919) and Aki (Autumn, 1920) prompted him to turn his attention increasingly to modern materials. This, along with the introspection occasioned by growing health and nervous problems, resulted in a series of autobiographically-based stories known as Yasukichi-mono, after the name of the main character. Works such as Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei(The Early Life of ...more

Combine Editions
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s books

Average rating: 3.98 · 43,390 ratings · 4,428 reviews · 1,114 distinct works • Similar authors

	Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jay Rubin (Translator), Haruki Murakami (Introduction) 4.14 avg rating — 8,018 ratings — published 1927 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rashomon and Other Stories 4.03 avg rating — 7,658 ratings — published 1952 — 193 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jay Rubin (Translator) 3.76 avg rating — 4,120 ratings — published 1927 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Geoffrey Bownas (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 3,408 ratings — published 1927 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	In a Grove 4.06 avg rating — 2,780 ratings — published 1922 — 52 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jay Rubin (Translator) 4.22 avg rating — 1,580 ratings — published 1918 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Three Japanese Short Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Kafū Nagai, Koji Uno 3.30 avg rating — 1,730 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Spider's Thread 4.11 avg rating — 834 ratings — published 1918 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mandarins: Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Charles De Wolf (Translator) 4.29 avg rating — 479 ratings — published 2007 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rashoumon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, René Malenfant (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 452 ratings — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa…

Series by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

芥川龍之介短篇選粹全五輯 (Traditional Chinese) (5 books)
by

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa,

芥川龍之介

4.56 avg rating — 9 ratings

Quotes by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (?)

“A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.”
― Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories

1025 likes

“I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.”
― Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Mandarins: Stories

156 likes

“I don't have the strength to keep writing this. To go on living with this feeling is painful beyond description. Isn't there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep?”
― Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

102 likes

See all Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's quotes »

Polls

Voting is now open for our January Classical read. Voting will stay open until December 31st, 2020 and the winning book will be announced on January 1st, 2021!

The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett

6 votes, 37.5%

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell

3 votes, 18.8%

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

3 votes, 18.8%

Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

2 votes, 12.5%

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

2 votes, 12.5%

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

0 votes, 0.0%

16 total votes

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