SOURCE: “Fresh Tales from Japan,” in The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXVI, No. 10, March 7, 1953, pp. 59–60.

In the following review, Halsband offers high praise for the English translation of Rashomon.

The recent success in this country of the Japanese film Roshomon probably explains why there has now been published Roshomon and Other Stories, by Ryuonsuke Akutagawa. The six stories which it contains need no recommendation except their own merits—which are fresh and striking. Their themes are varied: a pair of stories deal with murder and with seduction and rape; a pair are comic, about a glutton cured by gorging, and a mischievous priest deceived by his own deception; the remaining two relate the robbing of a thief, and the martyrdom of a saintly boy-girl. All are brief and incisive, yet with a wealth of over-tone which enlarges their meanings beyond specific people and places. The sensibility with which they...