Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is considered the father of the Japanese short story. He wrote more than 150 short stories, including “In a Grove” and “Rashōmon,” on which director Akira Kurosawa based his renowned film. Akutagawa was born in Tokyo to a mentally-ill mother who committed suicide shortly after his birth. His father, who struggled to raise him, transferred the child to his brother-in-law’s care. In his writing h, was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, repudiated literary naturalism, and was drawn to the mysterious and the bizarre. He defined the world as an “olympiad of lunatics,” and at the age of 35, when he felt that he himself was about to lose his sanity, committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.