TalkFriday 22 February 2019
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Re-imagining Akutagawa
Drinks reception: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan’s great writers – author of the stories ‘Rashōmon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’, most famously – who lived through Japan’s turbulent Taishō period, including the devastating 1923 Earthquake, only to take his own life at the age of just thirty-five in 1927.
Described as “one of the most original and intriguing books you’ll read this year,” and “the most illuminating commentary possible that Anglophone readers could find on this compelling figure,” Patient X is a novel of twelve tales inspired and informed by the life and works of Akutagawa. David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, declared Patient X to be “the best work to date” by David Peace. In this talk, David read from Patient X and discussed the life and work of Akutagawa with Damian Flanagan.
A video of the talk can be found here:
About the contributors
David Peace
David Peace – named in 2003 as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists – was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He is the author of the Red Riding Quartet (Nineteen Seventy-Four, Nineteen Seventy-Seven, Nineteen Eighty, and Nineteen Eighty-Three); GB84, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; The Damned Utd, and Red or Dead, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. The final part of his Tokyo Trilogy – to follow Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City – will be published after Patient X, his tenth novel. He lives in Tokyo and lectures in the Department of Contemporary Literature at the University of Tokyo.
Damian Flanagan
Damian Flanagan (Chair) is an award-winning author and translator who has published a number of books on Japanese literature. He has also written widely on Japanese politics, arts and society for publications including the Japan Times, the Asahi Shinbun, Newsweek and the Nihon Keizai Shinbun. Yukio Mishima is his latest book, published in October 2014. He lives in Manchester and Nishinomiya, Japan.