Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He took his own life at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital. Akutagawa was born in Kyōbashi, Tokyo, as the eldest son of businessman Toshizō Niihara and his wife Fuku. His mother experienced mental illness shortly after his birth, so he was adopted and raised by his maternal uncle, Dōshō Akutagawa, from whom he received the Akutagawa family name. He was interested in classical Chinese literature from an early age, as well as in the works of Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki. He entered the First High School in 1910 and developed relationships with classmates such as Kan Kikuchi, Kume Masao, Yūzō Yamamoto, and Tsuchiya Bunmei, all of whom would later become authors. He began writing after entering Tokyo Imperial University in 1913, where he studied English literature. While still a student, he proposed marriage to a childhood friend, Yayoi Yoshida, but his adoptive family did not approve the union. In 1916 he became engaged to Fumi Tsukamoto, whom he married in 1918. They had three children: Hiroshi Akutagawa (1920–1981) was an actor, Takashi Akutagawa (1922–1945) was killed as a student draftee in Burma, and Yasushi Akutagawa (1925–1989) was a composer. Following graduation, Akutagawa taught briefly at the Naval Engineering School in Yokosuka, Kanagawa as an English language instructor, before deciding to devote his efforts to writing fulltime. In 1914, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the literary journal Shinshichō ("New Currents of Thought"), where they published translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with works they had written themselves. Akutagawa published his second short story "Rashōmon" the following year in the literary magazine Teikoku Bungaku ("Imperial Literature"), while still a student. The story, based on a twelfth-century tale, was not well received by Akutagawa's friends, who greatly criticized it. However, it caught the attention of the author Natsume Sōseki, who praised Akutagawa and encouraged him to continue writing. Akutagawa followed Sōseki's advice and produced more stories, such as "In a Grove" (1922), which was later adapted into the film Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa. Akutagawa also wrote stories based on historical events, such as "The Nose" (1916), "O-Gin" (1918), and "Loyalty" (1924), as well as stories that explored his own psychological and moral concerns, such as "Hell Screen" (1918), "The Spider's Thread" (1918), and "Kappa" (1927). Akutagawa was a prolific and versatile writer, but he suffered from anxiety, insomnia, and fear of inherited mental illness. He became obsessed with his health and appearance, and often tried different diets and drugs. He also had a complex relationship with his mentor Sōseki, who died in 1916, and his rival Kikuchi, who became a popular and influential writer. Akutagawa felt insecure about his own literary reputation and the changing trends of the times. He was also troubled by the social and political upheavals that followed the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and the Shōwa Restoration of 1926. He wrote a series of autobiographical stories, such as "The Life of a Stupid Man" (1927), in which he expressed his disillusionment and despair. On July 24, 1927, he committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbital. His dying words in his will were "vague anxiety about my future" (ぼんやりとした不安). He was buried at Jigen-ji Temple in Osaka, where his mother's family lived.