Though he died by his own hand at the age of 35, novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa's accomplishments were such that, even after so brief a writing career, Japan's most prestigious literary accolade — the Akutagawa Prize — now bears his name.
As well as being known for that prize established in 1935, though, Akutagawa is also renowned as being the inspiration — through his short novels "Rashomon" and "Yabu no Naka" ("In a Grove") — for Akira Kurosawa's epic 1950 film "Rashomon," which scooped the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival and the best foreign film Oscar at the 24th Academy Awards the following year.
To commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth on March 1, 1892, of this so-called "father of the Japanese short story," more than 100 Akutagawa readers and experts held a symposium at the Tabata Memorial Museum of Writers and Artists in Tokyo's Kita Ward on March 10.
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