, art name , was a Japanese writer active in the Taishà  period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He took his own life at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.
Ryà «nosuke Akutagawa was born in Irifune, Kyà Âbashi, Tokyo City (present-day , Chà «à Â, Tokyo), the eldest son of businessman Toshizà  Niihara and his wife Fuku. His family owned a milk production business. His mother experienced mental illness shortly after his birth, so he was adopted and raised by his maternal uncle, Michiaki Akutagawa, from whom he received the Akutagawa family name. The Akutagawa lineage was part of the warrior class and served the Tokugawa clan as okubà Âzu, who managed the tearoom and served tea. Ryà «nosuke's adoptive family enjoyed art. He was interested in classical Chinese literature from an early age, as well as in the works of Mori à Âgai and Natsume Sà Âseki.
He entered the First Higher School without taking entrance exams thanks to his middle school academic record in 1910 and developed relationships with classmates such as Kan Kikuchi, Masao Kume, Yà «zà  Yamamoto, and , all of whom would later become authors. He began writing after entering Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) in 1913, where he studied English literature. While still a student, he proposed marriage to a childhood friend, Yayoi Yoshida, but his adoptive family did not approve the union. In 1916 he became engaged to , whom he married in 1918. They had three children: Hiroshi Akutagawa (1920âÂÂ1981) was an actor, Takashi Akutagawa (1922âÂÂ1945) was killed as a student draftee in Burma, and Yasushi Akutagawa (1925âÂÂ1989) was a composer.
Following graduation, Akutagawa taught briefly at the Naval Engineering School in Yokosuka, Kanagawa as an English language instructor, before deciding to devote his efforts to writing fulltime.
In 1914, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the literary journal Shinshichà  ("New Currents of Thought"), where they published translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with works they had written themselves. Akutagawa published his second short story Rashà Âmon the following year in the literary magazine Teikoku Bungaku ("Imperial Literature"), while still a student. The story, based on a twelfth-century tale, was not well received by Akutagawa's friends, who greatly criticized it. Nonetheless, Akutagawa gathered up the courage to visit his idol, Natsume Sà Âseki, in December 1915 for Sà Âseki's weekly literary circles. In November, he published the work in the literary magazine Teikoku Mongaku. In early 1916 he published Hana ("The Nose", 1916), which received a letter of praise from Sà Âseki and secured Akutagawa his first taste of fame.
It was also at this time that Akutagawa started writing haiku under the haigo (pen name) . Akutagawa followed with a series of short stories set in Heian period, Edo period or early Meiji period Japan. These stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents. Examples of these stories include: Gesaku zanmai ("", 1917) and Kareno-shà  ("Gleanings from a Withered Field", 1918), Jigokuhen ("Hell Screen", 1918); Hà Âkyà Ânin no Shi ("", 1918), and Butà Âkai (", 1920). Akutagawa was a strong opponent of naturalism. He published Mikan ("", 1919) and Aki ("", 1920) which have more modern settings.
In 1921, Akutagawa interrupted his writing career to spend four months in China, as a reporter for the Osaka Mainichi Shinbun. The trip was stressful and he suffered from various illnesses, from which his health would never recover. Shortly after his return he published Yabu no naka ("In a Grove", 1922). During the trip, Akutagawa visited numerous cities of southeastern China including Nanjing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Before his trip, he wrote a short story entitled Nankin no Kirisuto (""). It presents the Chinese Christian community according to his own imaginative vision of Nanjing, as influenced by classical Chinese literature.
Akutagawa's stories were influenced by his belief that the practice of literature should be universal and could bring together Western and Japanese cultures. The idea can be seen in the way that Akutagawa used existing works from a variety of cultures and time periods and either rewrites the story with modern sensibilities or creates new stories using ideas from multiple sources. Culture and the formation of a cultural identity is also a major theme in several of his works. In these stories, he explores the formation of cultural identity during periods in history where Japan was most open to outside influences. An example of this is his story Hà Âkyà Ânin no Shi ("The Death of a Disciple", 1918) which is set in the early missionary period.
The portrayal of women in Akutagawa's stories was mainly shaped by the influence of three women who acted as his mother figures. Most significant was his biological mother Fuku, from whom he worried about inheriting her madness. Although Akutagawa was removed from Fuku eight months after his birth, he identified strongly with her and believed that, if at any moment he might go mad, life was meaningless. His aunt Fuki played the most prominent role in his upbringing, controlling much of Akutagawa's life as well as demanding much of his attention, especially as she grew older. The women who appear in Akutagawa's stories, much like his mother figures, were for the most part written as dominating, aggressive, deceitful, and selfish. Conversely, men were often represented as the victims of such women.
The final phase of Akutagawa's literary career was marked by deteriorating physical and mental health. Much of his work during this period is distinctly autobiographical, some with text taken directly from his diaries. His works during this period include Daidà Âji Shinsuke no hansei ("", 1925) and Tenkibo ("", 1926).
At this time, Akutagawa had a highly publicized dispute with Jun'ichirà  Tanizaki over the importance of structure versus lyricism in stories. Akutagawa argued that structure (how the story was told) was more important than the content or plot of the story, whereas Tanizaki argued the opposite.
Akutagawa's final works include Kappa (1927), a satire based on the eponymous creature from Japanese folklore, Haguruma ("" or "Cogwheels", 1927), Aru ahà  no isshà  ("" or "The Life of a Stupid Man"), and Bungeiteki na, amari ni bungeiteki na ("", 1927).
Towards the end of his life, Akutagawa suffered from visual hallucinations and anxiety over the fear that he had inherited his mother's mental disorder. In 1927, he survived a suicide attempt, together with a friend of his wife. He later died of suicide after taking an overdose of Veronal, which had been given to him by Mokichi Saità  on 24 July of the same year. In his suicide note, addressed to his friend Masao Kume, he wrote that he felt a about the future. He was 35 years old.
During the course of his short life, Akutagawa wrote 150 short stories. A number of these have been adapted into other media. Akira Kurosawa's famous 1950 film Rashà Âmon retells Akutagawa's "In a Grove", with the title and the frame scenes set in the Rashomon Gate taken from Akutagawa's "Rashà Âmon". Ukrainian composer Victoria Poleva wrote the ballet Gagaku (1994), based on Akutagawa's "Hell Screen". Japanese composer Mayako Kubo wrote an opera entitled Rashomon, based on Akutagawa's story. The German version premiered in Graz, Austria in 1996, and the Japanese version in Tokyo in 2002. The central conceit of the story (i.e. conflicting accounts of the same events from different points of view, with none "definitive") has entered into storytelling as an accepted trope.
In 1930, Tatsuo Hori, a writer, who saw himself as a disciple of Akutagawa, published his short story "Sei kazoku" (literally "The Holy Family"), which was written under the impression of Akutagawa's death and even made reference to the dead mentor in the shape of the deceased character Kuki. In 1935, Akutagawa's lifelong friend Kan Kikuchi established the literary award for promising new writers, the Akutagawa Prize, in his honor.
In 2020 NHK produced and aired the film A Stranger in Shanghai. It depicts Akutagawa's time as a reporter in the city and stars Ryuhei Matsuda.