bA collectible hardcover edition of the best stories by the father of the Japanese short story--including the two that inspired Kurosawa's classic samurai film about the subjectivity of truth--featuring an introduction by Haruki Murakami pA Penguin Vitae Editionb pRy363nosuke Akutagawa is one of Japan's foremost stylists--a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty, and wild humor. Rash333mon and In a Bamboo Grove inspired Akira Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as The Nose, O-Gin and Loyalty paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as Death Register, The Life of a Stupid Man, and Spinning Gears, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories. pPenguin Vitae--loosel