Hell Screen

A painter is ordered to create a screen depicting hell, but his art demands a vision no ordinary imagination can supply. Around this central tale of beauty, cruelty, obsession, and terror, Ryunosuke Akutagawa gathers stories of vanity, Buddhist judgment, courtly humiliation, and supernatural rumor.

Hell Screen and Other Stories brings together five classic works: Hell Screen, The Nose, The Spider's Thread, Yam Gruel, and Dragon: The Old Potter's Tale. The collection moves from aristocratic splendor to the depths of hell, from comic self-consciousness to a sinner's failed chance at salvation.

Akutagawa stands among the defining masters of modern Japanese short fiction. His work transformed classical sources, Buddhist parables, historical anecdotes, and folklore into psychologically sharp narratives whose irony and precision still feel strikingly modern.

This volume offers a concentrated introduction to that range: grotesque beauty, moral unease, black comedy, and the unstable border between rumor and truth, all shaped by one of Japan's most influential literary voices.