Rashomon and seventeen other stories (Penguin Books)

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked aby highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty, and wild humour."Rashomon" and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired 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 aby 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.