Kappa - by Ryonosuke Akutagawa (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

JAPAN'S FIRST TRUE SATIRE: A surreal journey through an underground world inhabited by mythical, turtle-like creatures whose customs shed a disturbing light on human society, from a founding father of Japanese literature.

"A devilishly cool satire on human behaviour." -The New Statesman

The last work that icon of Japanese letters Ryunosuke Akutagawa published in his lifetime, this darkly comic and astute novel challenges the conventions of so-called polite society.

In early 20th-century Japan, a lone hiker falls through a hole in the ground into Kappaland. After many encounters and with a fresh perspective on life and death, he makes it back to tell the tale.

Kappaland is ruled by the kappas, amphibious creatures who share characteristics with tigers and turtles but who, for all their strangeness, follow some compassionate logic and shed light on the human condition. In Kappaland, adhering to the kappas' faith in Lifeism, children choose whether or not to be born, intellectuals think nothing of drinking themselves to death as part of a cultural demonstration, and unemployed workers are saved the bother of supporting themselves by being turned into sandwich meat.

Gruesome as life is there, the Kappas are refreshingly honest about their practices, and it's a return to the world above that causes the narrator's mind to unravel.

Featuring a fresh, comprehensive translation by the acclaimed Geoffrey Bownas, this gorgeous Pushkin Press Classics paperback is perfect for Akutagawa and Japanese literature fans looking for a cornerstone text of the father of Japanese short fiction.

About the Author

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) was one of Japan's leading literary figures in the Taisho period. Regarded as the father of the Japanese short story, he produced over a hundred and fifty in his short lifetime, including "Rashomon", which inspired Kurosawa's classic film. Haunted by the fear that he would inherit his mother's madness, Akutagawa suffered from worsening mental health problems towards the end of his life and committed suicide aged thirty-five by taking an overdose of barbiturates within a year of publishing Kappa.

Geoffrey Bownas (1923-2011) founded the Department of Japanese Studies at Oxford in 1954 and went on to be the first professor of Japanese Studies at Sheffield University in 1965. In 1999 Bownas was awarded the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure and in 2003 he was made CBE for his contributions to the improvement of Anglo-Japanese relations.