Akutagawa committed suicide on July 24, 1927, at the age of thirty-five. He had suffered from visual hallucinations and in his suicide note, entitled 'A Note to a Certain Old Friend', the author wrote: "The world I am now in is one of diseased nerves, lucid as ice. Such voluntary death must give us peace, if not happiness. Now that I am ready, I find nature more beautiful than ever, paradoxical as this may sound. I have seen, loved, and understood more than others."
A new translation of Akutagawa's work in Penguin should bring these stories to a wider audience. The edition has an introduction by Haruki Murakami; a choice that would probably dismay many in the Japanese literary establishment. Hopefully his popularity in the west will help to secure a continued interest in the great Japanese Modernist.
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