{"product_id":"9781935744122","title":"Mandarins: Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa","description":"Prefiguring the vital modernist voices of the Western literary canon, Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and reveals his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal. \"What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?\" Akutagawa once mused. Both piercing intelligence and \"useful melancholy\" buoy this remarkable collection. Mandarins contains three stories published in English for the first time: \"An Evening Conversation,\" \"An Enlightened Husband,\" and \"Winter.\"","brand":"Steerforth Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47141356503280,"sku":"9781935744122","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781935744122_p0.jpg?v=1763657093","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781935744122","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}