**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Offers a variety of Buddhist techniques to help us feel calmer every day . . . Nothing has changed . . . and everything has changed . . . I feel calmer and more centred' Sunday Times**What if we could learn to look instead of see, listen instead of hear, feel instead of touch? Former monk Ryunosuke Koike shows how, by incorporating simple Zen practices into our daily lives, we can reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peac...

For fans of Shōgun: The best stories by the father of the Japanese short story—including the two that inspired Kurosawa's classic samurai film about the subjectivity of truth—featuringan introduction by Haruki MurakamiRyünosuke Akutagawa is one of Japan's foremost stylists—a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashömon"and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and...

Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kurosawa’s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ‘The Nose’, ‘O-Gin’ and ‘Loyalty’ paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later wo...

Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ryunosuke Akutagawa created disturbing stories out of Japan's cultural upheaval. Rashomon tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like Yam Gruel is an account of desire and humiliation, but one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in The Martyr, a beloved orphan raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to ad...

Brought to you by Penguin.What if we could learn to look instead of see, listen instead of hear, feel instead of touch? Former monk and bestselling author Ryunosuke Koike shows how, by incorporating simple Zen practices into our daily lives, we can reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peaceful, positive way.When we focus on our senses and learn to re-train our brains and our bodies, we start to eliminate the distracting noise of our minds and t...

"Rashōmon" (羅生門) is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa based on tales from the Konjaku Monogatarishū.The story was first published in 1915 in Teikoku Bungaku. Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950) is in fact based primarily on another of Akutagawa's short stories, "In a Grove"; only the film's title and some of the material for the frame scenes, such as the theft of a kimono and the discussion of the moral ambiguity of thieving to survive, are borrowed from "Rashōmon".

"In a Grove" (藪の中 Yabu no Naka) is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa; it first appeared in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for the plot of his award-winning movie Rashōmon."In a Grove" is an early modernist short story, as well as a blending of the modernist search for identity with themes from historic Japanese literature, and as such is perhaps the iconic work of Akutagawa's career. It presents th...

'Oh the cruelty of time, that destroys all things!'Beguiling, strange and hair-raising tales from early 20th century Japan: Nagai's Behind the Prison, Uno's Closet LLB and Akutagawa's deeply macabre General Kim.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kat...

"In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth. It is the basis for Kurosawa's "Rashoumon...

"In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth. It is the basis for Kurosawa's "Rashoumon...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, ...