✳︎Book Title: "KAPPA" ✳︎Author: Ryunosuke Akutagawa ✳︎Translator: Seiichi Shiojiri ✳︎Publisher: Hokuseido Shoten ✳︎Year of Publication: 1949 English Revised Edition ✳︎Number of Pages: 136p ✳︎Size: Height 19cm (Large Octavo) ◉Contents: 1. Preface by Dr. Kyō Tsunetō (1p) 2. Introductory Notes (9p) 3. Ryunosuke Akutagawa 4. The Kappa in the Japanese Folklore (12p) 5. Kappa (25p) This novel features a mentally ill patient who gets lost in the land of "Kappa," creatures from Japanese folklore, as the narrator. It is also known that Akutagawa took his own life five months after completing this work. This English translation went beyond a mere translation, serving as a kind of "code" that released Ryunosuke Akutagawa's misanthropic views into the devastated world immediately after the war. The original translation manuscript was completed in 1940, when militarism cast a shadow over the world. At the time, Dr. Kyō Tsunetō, a professor at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, strongly recommended the publication of this misanthropic satirical novel in a "highly encouraging letter." This shows that intellectuals of the time found in Akutagawa's work a quiet skepticism towards the establishment and a timeless critical spirit. In the chaotic period immediately after the war, the translator, Seiichi Shiojiri, along with overseas collaborators, sent this book out into the world as a "troublesome but valuable existence." He later likened the difficulties of publication to an "elephant." It was the moment when Akutagawa's confession of "madness" just before his suicide was released into the devastated post-war world. The most intense response came from a review in *Time* magazine. ◉The Impact That Broke Through the Times (After 1947) "To American readers, Akutagawa's satire seemed almost too good to be true for something written by a Japanese." This overturned the Western prejudice of the time that "Japanese people are emotional." The radical satire depicted in "Kappa," such as eugenics, the unemployed, and the downfall of capitalism, was received as a universal theme that resonated in the West, and it became the decisive factor in Akutagawa's evaluation as a "un-Japanese" global dystopian writer. #RyunosukeAkutagawa #Kappa #KAPPA #JapaneseLiterature #Dystopia #PostwarLiterature #LiteraryWorld #SatiricalNovel