The Lady of Rokunomiya and Other Writings

A sheltered noblewoman loses the family that gave her life its shape. A lover offers protection, then leaves her waiting. As her world contracts, her story moves toward a haunting encounter at the capital’s great gate.

The Lady of Rokunomiya is joined by three works that reveal Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s range. From Yasukichi’s Notebook follows a teacher through humiliation, boredom, sudden fantasy, and unexpected glimpses of dignity. I offers brief, disquieting observations on conscience, desire, and the competing selves within a single person.

In Biased Views, Akutagawa writes with openly personal conviction about the poet Saitō Mokichi, the legendary hero Iwami Jūtarō, and the scholar and collector Kimura Sonsai. Poetry, popular storytelling, painting, and the pleasures of a cultivated life become ways of questioning what art can do.