Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: Life and Major Works

Life
1892–1927
Born in
Tokyo
Literary schools
  • New Thought School
Wikipedia
Wikipedia

Biography

Born in Tokyo in 1892; his given name was likewise Ryūnosuke. While studying English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, he co-founded the third and fourth incarnations of the magazine "Shinshichō" with fellow students, and made his debut when the short story "The Nose" was highly praised by Natsume Sōseki. Drawing on classical sources such as the Konjaku Monogatarishū and the Uji Shūi Monogatari, he published one sharply observed story after another — "Rashomon," "Yam Gruel," "In a Grove" — that laid bare human egoism, and won acclaim as a leading figure of the New Technicalist school of the Taishō era. In his later years he suffered from failing health and a "vague uneasiness," and in 1927 he took his own life with an overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 35. After his death, the Akutagawa Ryūnosuke Prize (the Akutagawa Prize) was established in his name as a gateway award for new writers, and it remains to this day the central literary prize in Japan.

Works in the app

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