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."
- ISBN10 0977857603
- ISBN13 9780977857609
- Publish Date 16 July 2007
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 9 August 2023
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Archipelago Books
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 255
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780977857609