Seashells

RyūnosukeAkutagawa (1892–1927), born in Tokyo, Japan, wrote more than 350 works of fiction and nonfiction, including the books Rashomon, The Spider’s Thread, Kappa, and In a Grove. Japan’s premier literary award for emerging writers, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. (updated 4/2022)

Ryan Choi is Reverb editor of AGNI and has been part of the editorial team since 2023. He is the translator of In Dreams: The Very Short Works of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Paper + Ink, 2022) and the author of Three Demons: A Study on Sanki Saito’s Haiku (Open Letter, 2022), as well as the forthcoming Hell of Solitude: The Selected Writings of Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Prototype, 2025) and The Dada Scribblings: Poems by Jun Tsuji (Broken Sleep, 2025). His work has appeared in Harper’s, AGNI, Poetry, The New Criterion, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was born and raised. (updated 6/2026)