About Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Ryunosuke Akutagawa was born in the Dragon Hour on a Dragon Day in the Dragon Month of a Dragon Year (January, 1892) in Tokyo. He was named Ryunosuke, Dragon Helper, by his father. Akutagawa was educated at Tokyo University, taught briefly, and joined the literary staff of a newspaper. It is generally thought that he inherited his neurotic disposition from his sick mother whom he calls a "madwoman" in one of his biographical stories. His mother, Fuku, was already schizophrenic when Akutgawa was born. She passed away in 1902. Akutagawa left more than two hundred writings including short stories, poems, and essays before he took his own life at the age of thirty-five in 1927.
After translating all 1079 stories in the Konjaku Tales, or the Konjaku monogatarishu, the largest collection of tales from 12th century Japan, I became interested in the works of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, since he was the first modern writer who recognized the value of the Konjaku. He incorporated many themes from the Konjaku into his stories. One of these stories was translated into English and popularized in Kurosawa's famous motion picture Rashoman.
I translated a number of Akutagawa's stories including ten with Christian motifs, of which The Christ of Nanking is one. The other nine appear in the journal Japanese Religion (Vol.31, No.1) with the following titles: A Miracle, Lucifer, The Life of a Holy Fool, Black Robed Maria, Smiles of the Gods, Returning a Favor, Ogin, The Diary of Maid Ito, and Oshino. Students of religious studies and comparative religion may find these stories interesting as they reflect Akutagawa's critical views regarding the acceptance of Western values in old Japan. The Christ of Nanking tersely reveals Akutagawa's cynical views of the adopted religion, staging the scene in China with a Chinese prostitute as the protagonist.