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Mandarins by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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Mandarins

Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

By Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Translated by Charles DeWolf

By Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Translated by Charles DeWolf

By Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Translated by Charles DeWolf

By Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Translated by Charles DeWolf

Best Seller
Paperback $16.00

Jul 16, 2007 | ISBN 9780977857609

Ebook $12.99

Mar 22, 2011 | ISBN 9781935744122

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    Mandarins by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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    Jul 16, 2007 | ISBN 9780977857609

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    About Mandarins

    Prefiguring the vital modernist voices of the Western literary canon, Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and reveals his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal. “What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?” Akutagawa once mused. Both piercing intelligence and “useful melancholy” buoy this remarkable collection. Mandarins contains three stories published in English for the first time: “An Evening Conversation,” “An Enlightened Husband,” and “Winter.”

    About Mandarins

    Prefiguring the vital modernist voices of the Western literary canon, Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and reveals his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal. “What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?” Akutagawa once mused. Both piercing intelligence and “useful melancholy” buoy this remarkable collection. Mandarins contains three stories published in English for the first time: “An Evening Conversation,” “An Enlightened Husband,” and “Winter.”

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    Murder in the Age of Enlightenment
    See all books by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    Also by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    Murder in the Age of Enlightenment
    See all books by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Archipelago
    Jul 16, 2007 | 255 Pages | 6 x 7-1/2 | ISBN 9780977857609

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Archipelago
    Mar 22, 2011 | 255 Pages | ISBN 9781935744122

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    Praise

    The flow of his language is the best feature of Akutagawa’s style. Never stagnant, it moves along like a living thing . . . His choice of words is intuitive, natural – and beautiful.—Haruki Murakami

    The works of Akutagawa comprise, in the literary sense, an indispensable anatomy of melancholy. He was both traditional and experimental and always compelling and fearless. As Joseph Brodsky said, Akutagawa loved the world strangely. There is no writer quite like him. The translations of Charles De Wolf make for the perfect duet between languages. This is a wonderful collection. —Howard Norman

    Extravagance and horror are in his work but never in his style, which is always crystal-clear.—Jorge Luis Borges

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