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  • Published: 25 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9780141397726
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 64
  • RRP: $7.99

The Life of a Stupid Man




Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.'
Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

  • Published: 25 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9780141397726
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 64
  • RRP: $7.99

Other books in the series

About the author

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, short-story writer, poet, and essayist, one of the first Japanese modernists translated into English. He was born in Tokyo in 1892, and began writing for student publications at the age of ten. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1916 with an English Literature degree and worked as a teacher before becoming a full time writer in 1919. His mother had gone mad suddenly just months after his birth and he was plagued by fear of inherited insanity all his life. He killed himself in 1927.

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