Mandarins
Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Fiction & Literature, Psychological, Short Stories, Literary
| Author: | Ryunosuke Akutagawa | ISBN: | 9781935744122 |
| Publisher: | Steerforth Press | Publication: | March 22, 2011 |
| Imprint: | Archipelago | Language: | English |
| Author: | Ryunosuke Akutagawa |
| ISBN: | 9781935744122 |
| Publisher: | Steerforth Press |
| Publication: | March 22, 2011 |
| Imprint: | Archipelago |
| Language: | English |
Prefiguring the vital modernist voices of the Western literary canon, Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and reveals his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal. "What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?" Akutagawa once mused. Both piercing intelligence and "useful melancholy" buoy this remarkable collection. Mandarins contains three stories published in English for the first time: "An Evening Conversation," "An Enlightened Husband," and "Winter."
Prefiguring the vital modernist voices of the Western literary canon, Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and reveals his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal. "What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?" Akutagawa once mused. Both piercing intelligence and "useful melancholy" buoy this remarkable collection. Mandarins contains three stories published in English for the first time: "An Evening Conversation," "An Enlightened Husband," and "Winter."
