A Strange Story and Other Works

A woman’s encounter with a sinister railway porter becomes the occasion for a very different revelation. An obscure recluse lives in a solitude that seems to belong to Buddhist hells. A teacher absorbed in an explanation of heat transfer is drawn into the life and sudden death of a railway crossing keeper.

In The General, four episodes spanning the Russo-Japanese War and its aftermath bring military prestige into uneasy contact with suffering, execution, theatrical entertainment, and a son’s resentment. Ten Rules for Writing Fiction turns a skeptical eye on the novelist’s talents, material resources, and uncertain rewards.

Boyhood closes the collection with memories at once intimate and elusive: Christmas in a transformed Tokyo, a child’s puzzle over marks on a road, a red-ochre sea, and a girl glimpsed in a magic-lantern picture. These six complete works display Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s wit, compassion, and distrust of easy explanations. A new English translation preserves every supplied passage, original closing date, and obscured censorship mark, with concise notes. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.