In a Grove
In a Grove
Author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Desc: "In a Grove" (藪の中 Yabu no Naka?) is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first appearing in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his award-winning movie Rashōmon. "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.