Hell Screen - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Hell Screen by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin / ISBN 9780241573693 / 214-page hardback from Penguin

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Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith...bound in colorful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.

Akutagawa was one of the towering figures of modern Japanese literature, and is considered the father of the Japanese short story. This paradigmatic selection, which includes the stories that inspired Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, showcases the terrible beauty, cynicism, sublime pain and absurd humour of his writing.

'One never tires of reading and re-reading his best works. The elegantly spare style has a truly spine-tingling brilliance' - Haruki Murakami