New Releases · 2026-05-01 · Reading time ~ 8 min
Three Modern Japanese Masters Newly Translated on Pagera — Akutagawa, Kajii, Arishima
Five short pieces from three giants of modern Japanese literature, newly available in Korean on Pagera. Akutagawa's suicide note, Kajii's prose poem, Arishima's letter to his tenant farmers — short, dense, recently quality-passed.
Pagera Editorial
In spring 2026, three major names from modern Japanese literature joined Pagera in Korean for the first time: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Motojirō Kajii, and Takeo Arishima. All three are familiar names to Korean readers — but rarely read in their actual short pieces. Here are the five short works our editors just published.
1. Akutagawa — "Suicide Note" (1927)
Best known for "Rashōmon" and "The Nose," Akutagawa left this short note shortly before his suicide at 35. It collects private letters to a friend, his children, and his wife. Self-mockery, calm composure, and a deathbed quietness all coexist. The writer who calls himself "a madman's child" still addresses his children in classical Sino-Japanese aphorisms.
2. Kajii — "A Landscape in the Mind" (1926)
Kajii died of tuberculosis at 31. Korean readers know him only through "Lemon," but his ~30 short prose poems all show the same crystalline sensory observation. This piece moves outward — Hakata's pleasure quarter dialect, a mother in a dream, a long silence — across six chapters.
Read "A Landscape in the Mind" on Pagera
3. Kajii — "About Aozora" (c. 1928)
The same Kajii reminiscing about the literary magazine Aozora (1925-1927). Tonally opposite to his prose poems — light, witty, full of in-jokes among his fellow contributors.
4. Arishima — "Autumn"
Arishima led the Shirakaba (White Birch) school. He died in a love suicide at 45 in 1923. Tolstoyan humanism runs underneath, but the surface is contemplative landscape. "Autumn" looks at a Hokkaido farm in fall through 19-go apples, an irori hearth, a hanging lamp.
5. Arishima — "A Farewell to My Tenant Farmers" (1922)
The same writer, but a defining document of social history. In July 1922, Arishima transferred his entire Hokkaido farm — 70+ tenant households — to its tenants at no cost. This is the farewell address. Calm "desu/masu" politeness, addressing them as "shokun." Read alongside "Autumn," the two works show what the Shirakaba school meant by moral seriousness.