The Beautiful and the Grotesque - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

The Beautiful and the Grotesque by Ryunosuke Akutagawa / ISBN 9780871401922 / Cover illustration and some interior illustrations by Yuko Shimizu / design by Rodrigo Corral / These discounted copies show some age and shelf wear. *** From one of the masters of the short story comes an unforgettable collection of haunting and strange tales. Ever since his death in 1927, Ryunosuke Akutagawa has been hailed as one of the greatest short story writers in world literature. Most famous for his story Rashomon and the Kurosawa movie it inspired, Akutagawa’s wide range of fiction is beautifully displayed in this newly reissued collection of his stories. With characteristic lyricism and great style, the stories here capture the strange world of Akutagawa, from the slow, gentle death of a haiku master (“Withered Fields”) to a vicious, marauding gang and their bloody fight with samurai (“The Robbers”), and the sly tale told from a dog’s perspective of his escape from home (“The Dog, Shiro”). Througho