Relatos de perros

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Hachi (ocho) era un perro de raza Akita, una de las más populares de Japón, que vivía con Hidesaburō Ueno, profesor de Ingeniería Agrónoma de la Universidad de Tokio. Todas las mañanas, el fiel Hachi acompañaba al profesor a la estación de Shibuya y regresaba, cada tarde, para recibirlo; hasta que un día, Ueno sufrió una hemorragia cerebral mientras impartía clase y falleció. Al comprobar que su amigo no regresaba, el perro se quedó a vivir frente a la estación. La gente, conmovida por su devoción, comenzó a alimentarlo y lo apodó Hachikō (el leal Hachi). Hachikō murió diez años después frente a la estación de Shibuya. Allí mismo, hay erigida una estatua de bronce en su honor. Nueve relatos de distinta temática en los que el protagonista indiscutible es el perro, un animal muy querido y respetado en Japón, que tiene incluso varias razas autóctonas, y que es, como demuestra la historia de Hachikō, el mejor amigo del hombre. La continuación de nuestro ‘Relatos de gatos‘, una deliciosa selección de relatos, en esta ocasión protagonizados por el mejor y más fiel amigo del hombre.

128 pages, Paperback

Published May 18, 2020

About the author

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川 龍之介) was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen.

Akutagawa was born in the Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). Seven months after Akutagawa's birth, his mother went insane and he was adopted by her older brother, taking the Akutagawa family name. Despite the shadow this experience cast over Akutagawa's life, he benefited from the traditional literary atmosphere of his uncle's home, located in what had been the "downtown" section of Edo.

At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yūzō, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the journal Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every Thursday at the house of Natsume Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple.

The lapsed Shinshichō was revived yet again in 1916, and Sōseki lavished praise on Akutagawa's story Hana (The Nose) when it appeared in the first issue of that magazine. After graduating from Tokyo University, Akutagawa earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint. His overriding themes became the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art, themes that received expression in a number of brilliant, tightly organized short stories conventionally categorized as Edo-mono (stories set in the Edo period), ōchō-mono (stories set in the Heian period), Kirishitan-mono (stories dealing with premodern Christians in Japan), and kaika-mono (stories of the early Meiji period). The Edo-mono include Gesaku zanmai (A Life Devoted to Gesaku, 1917) and Kareno-shō (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ōchō-mono are perhaps best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hokōnin no shi (The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butōkai(The Ball, 1920).

Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka, becoming an employee of the Mainichi Shinbun. This period was a productive one, as has already been noted, and the success of stories like Mikan (Mandarin Oranges, 1919) and Aki (Autumn, 1920) prompted him to turn his attention increasingly to modern materials. This, along with the introspection occasioned by growing health and nervous problems, resulted in a series of autobiographically-based stories known as Yasukichi-mono, after the name of the main character. Works such as Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei(The Early Life of

Reviews

[Monalisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recopilatorio que contiene nueve relatos breves, de nueve autores japoneses —de finales del siglo XIX y hasta mediados del XX—, que giran alrededor de los perros. Historias variadas, alguna triste, pero la mayoría sencillas y entrañables, incluso con fantasía y alguna bonita reflexión, que nos hablan de la fidelidad y bondad de sus protagonistas. Una lectura muy amena, que además incluye coloridas ilustraciones japonesas de perros.

[Maximiliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermosos relatos de tan grandes autores, la editorial le error en la descripción de los autores, dónde en uno no dice nada y luego encuentro una foto repetida para dos autores diferentes.