Four Essays

Four short pieces by the man who founded Bungei Shunjū and the Akutagawa Prize: literary life seen from the inside, from a young writer's Kyōto jottings in 1914 to a quiet farewell to a friend in 1930.

Kyōto Notes (1914): eight compact observations on mistranslated plays, costly haircuts, the dogs of Kyōto and evenings of talk at Ueda Bin's house. Gennai's Letter and Writers' Fees (1926): memories of Hiraga Gennai, then a sharp reply to Satō Haruo on what writers are paid and why they need an association.

On a Library for Schoolchildren (1927): his plan for an eighty-volume, thirty-five-sen library for young readers. In Memory of Akutagawa (1930): a rattan chair, young leaves and winter sunlight in his afterword for Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. All four complete, newly translated from Japanese, with notes.