Ryunosuke Akutagawa – författare

'One never tires of reading and re-reading his best works. Akutagawa was a born short-story writer' Haruki Murakami

'The quintessential writer of his era' David Peace

These are short stories from an unparalleled icon of modern Japanese literature. Sublimely crafted and shot through with a fantastical sensibility, they offer dazzling glimpses into moments of madness, murder and obsession.

A talented and spiteful painter is given over to depravity in pursuit of artistic brilliance. In the depths of hell, a robber spies a single spider's thread being lowered towards him. When a body is found in an isolated bamboo grove, a kaleidoscopic account of violence and desire begins to unfold.

Vividly translated by Bryan Karetnyk, this mesmerising collection brings together a series of essential works from the master of the Japanese short story.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by Bryan Karetnyk

Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan's leading literary figures in the Taisho period. Regarded as the father of the Japanese short story, he produced over 150 in his short lifetime. Haunted by the fear that he would inherit his mother's madness, Akutagawa suffered from worsening mental health problems towards the end of his life and committed suicide aged 35 by taking an overdose of barbiturates.

'Enchanting and sometimes terrifying' Jorge Luis Borges

'Exquisite' Sunday Times

A lone mountain hiker falls through a hole in the ground into Kappaland, inhabited by creatures that are half tiger, half turtle. Here, children choose whether to be born, unemployed workers are turned into sandwich meat, and human artists are enshrined as saints.

Despite the Kappas' strange and often gruesome ways, it's a return to the world above that drives the narrator to madness in Akutagawa's only novel. Written as Japan entered an era of aggressive imperialism, this surreal satire is a darkly comic cry of protest.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by Geoffrey Bownas.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) was one of Japan's leading literary figures in the Taisho period. Regarded as the father of the Japanese short story, he produced over 150 in his short lifetime. Haunted by the fear that he would inherit his mother's madness, Akutagawa suffered from worsening mental health problems towards the end of his life and committed suicide aged 35 by taking an overdose of barbiturates. Pushkin Press also publish a collection of his short stories, Murder in the Age of Enlightenment.

Geoffrey Bownas (1923-2011) was born in West Yorkshire. He learned Japanese while serving in the army during the Second World War, and went on to establish Oxford's department of Japanese studies. He taught, translated and worked to further British-Japanese cultural understanding and international collaboration throughout his life, earning a CBE and Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Paris, New York, London och Tokyo - fyra världsmetropoler, fyra noveller som tar dig med på en resa i både tid och rum. Städerna är skildrade av några av våra största klassiker. Följ med till Honoré de Balzacs omsorgsfullt beskrivna Paris och dess slingrande gator, till Edith Whartons societetsliv på övre Manhattan och på Charles Dickens nattliga vandringar i ett ruffigt London. Och för första gången någonsin i svensk översättning: den japanska novellkonstens fader, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, som här tar dig med till några sömnlösa dygn i förra sekelskiftets Tokyo.

Asken innehåller fyra böcker: Honoré de Balzac - En gata i Paris och dess invånare Edith Wharton - Kvicksand Charles Dickens - Natt i London Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Kugghjul

"Finaste gå bort-presenten" Femina

Novellix ger ut stora läsupplevelser i litet format! En novell per bok, och alltid med originalomslag av svenska formgivare, illustratörer och konstnärer. Novellerna säljs både styckvis och förpackade i fina presentaskar.