A homage to the writer of Rashomon is a haunting but demanding read.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa was arguably Japan’s best-known modern writer of short stories. Westerners remember him chiefly for In a Grove and Rashomon, because those two stories were combined by Akira Kurosawa when he made Rashomon, still regarded by many as the classic Japanese film. In his twenties, Akutagawa wrote hundreds of stories, influenced as much by European literature (he spoke both French and English fluently) as by traditional Japanese tales.
A literary genius but a deeply melancholy man, Akutagawa committed suicide in 1927, aged only 35.You have to know all this, and quite a bit more, if you are going to find your way through Patient X.
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