In A Grove

In A Grove

In A Grove

By Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Short story


“In a Grove” (Yabu no Naka) is a short story by Ry?nosuke Akutagawa, first appearing in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinch?. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his award-winning movie Rash?mon.
“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.
The story is often praised as being among the greatest in Japanese literature.

Ry?nosuke Akutagawa (Akutagawa Ry?nosuke, 1 March 1892 – 24 July 1927) was a Japanese writer active in the Taish? 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 committed suicide at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.