Patient X : The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

In these twelve interconnected tales, David Peaceacclaimed author of the Red Riding Quartet, Occupied City, and Tokyo Year Zeroweaves fact and fiction as he takes up the brief but fiercely lived life of the early-twentieth-century Japanese writer Rynosuke Akutagawa. Unique and offbeat, Patient X delves into Akutagawa's rich and complicated private life: his fears and battles with mental illness; his complex reaction to the Westernization of Japan; his exacting creative process; and his suicide, weaving these facets into a hauntingly evocative portrait. But Patient X is more than a paean to one remarkable writer: it is also an incandescent exploration of the act and obsession of writing itself, and of the role of the artist in times that darkly mirror our own.