In a Thicket and Other Stories

A young café waitress imagines a life of romance and art, until an astonishing bargain at a greengrocer’s interrupts her dreams. In a mountain thicket, the discovery of a murdered man sets seven conflicting voices against one another. A father improvises tiger stories for his child, while samurai bound for war find themselves divided over whether to cherish or destroy lice.

The collection closes on the Kugenuma coast, where a mirage, a washed-up wooden tablet, and a glow in the dark unsettle the boundaries between perception and imagination. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, one of modern Japan’s most influential short-story writers, combines irony, tenderness, historical detail, and an exact awareness of how people explain themselves.

These complete writings, first published between 1916 and 1927, appear in a new English translation with concise notes on names, customs, and source irregularities. The six supplied sources include two identical copies of In a Thicket, both preserved in their original order. AI-assisted translation.