Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's 3 Best Books

Japanese literature has two very different views. From the outside we find in Murakami to its emblem and we recognize its predecessors kawabata o Kenzaburo Oe. However, in his own narrative imaginary, the myths of the ill-fated Mishima o Akutagawa they are even more powerful referents than those mentioned above. And that these last two are increasingly valued with their strident literature sometimes for Western readers.

Without a doubt, international success, with its great awards, does not have to correspond to that recognition in its own land, always subject to different variables due to the greater approach to the character in its closest aspect. Disappeared in 1927 at the age of thirty, Akutagawa mainly cultivated a genre of short stories. Short stories with a strong roots in the popular that brought them unanimous Japanese literary recognition.

His particular vision confers a gloomy feeling, a sinister predestination of his characters. And it is that the particular circumstances of the author were transferred to his work as a replica of Edgar Allan Poe The other side of the world. An author so different, in part because of his psychic imbalances, that he proposed plot avant-gardes that even reached the cinema through a story as fascinating as Rashomon.

Akutagawa's Top 3 Recommended Books

KAIKI. Tales of horror and madness

Until the introduction of Chinese ideograms in the XNUMXth century, Japanese was an oral language that had no writing. It is, surely, the country with the widest and oldest oral tradition. The monogataru was the job of telling stories orally and among all of them, the favorites of the Japanese, who have transcended beyond their borders, are the supernatural and scary chronicles.

In this compilation, the reader will enjoy a selection of chilling stories, stories that will drag us to a country full of myths, ancient legends and superstitions. A remote and exotic place where its inhabitants live with the deep-rooted belief that there are many types of monsters, imaginary and real, hidden among us.

From incredible hermits who preserve the heads of their victims to youths marked by fate who announce a fateful end to the ships they board, these tales will move in the thin barrier that separates the real world from the mythological one. Among its pages, we can see the vital importance of the sea in the superstition of a country made up of more than three thousand islands or the darkness hidden by new advances such as movies.

Always without forgetting the complexity of the Japanese mentality, whose fascination can become something truly terrifying. Prepare to enjoy twelve haunting tales that will make your hair stand on end. An essential reading for all fans of gothic and horror novels.

KAIKI. Tales of horror and madness

Life of an idiot and other confessions

From the distorted perception of Akutagawa's own identity, this book emanates that feeling of confession overturned in literature as an impossible therapy, as recognition of defeat in the face of a disease assumed as the only destiny.

«I no longer have the strength to write any more. Living with this feeling is indescribable pain. Is there no one to do me the favor of coming and silently strangling me while I sleep? "

These heartbreaking words come from the pen of a tormented man, faced with the abyss of an existence that has ceased to make sense. In the last years of his life, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke he suffered from hallucinations, could not tolerate sunlight, and could not sleep without the aid of sleeping pills. Life of an idiot and other confessions is the key to the mind of the author of «Rashomon». Through the stories included in this book it is possible to follow the steps of his short but intense life: autobiographical brushstrokes, liberating confidences, Zen delusions, exquisite aphorisms ...

Life of an idiot and other confessions

Rashomon and other historical accounts

Almost all Japanese writers occasionally look at that historical vision that is linked to the powerful Japanese imagination, from which so many customs and attitudes cling to all social behavior of this people emerge. Discovering new ways of relating this current idiosyncrasy, so indebted to the cultural heritage accumulated over centuries, awakens us to an empathy full of symbols that, yes, Akutagawa is responsible for deforming to the point of rupture.

5 unpublished stories. "Rashomon" takes us to XNUMXth century Japan, a country ravaged by war, hunger and despair, a perfect setting in which the disturbing complexities of human existence are shown to the reader with a brutality not without beauty.

Akutagawa has transcended the borders of time and space and has established himself in the history of universal literature as one of the great masters of the story. His brilliant narrative talent, his sophisticated and elegant style, his extreme sensitivity and his ability to unravel the darkest and most complex aspects of human nature make his works true timeless jewels and elevate his author to the category of genius of letters.

Rashomon: and other historical accounts
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