The book shown in your image is Rashomon, a collection of short stories by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa is often called the “father of the Japanese short story,” and Rashomon is one of his most famous and enduring works. The collection captures deep, often unsettling questions about morality, truth, and the human condition, themes that continue to resonate across cultures and generations.

The title story, Rashomon, is set in a decaying Kyoto at a time of famine and social collapse. It tells the story of a servant who, faced with starvation and despair, must decide whether to betray his morals to survive. The story vividly portrays the breakdown of ethical certainty when society itself is falling apart. Rather than offering clear answers, it leaves the reader to wrestle with uncomfortable moral ambiguity.

Another of Akutagawa’s notable stories, In a Grove, is often associated with Rashomon because both were famously adapted into Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon. In a Grove presents a crime from multiple conflicting perspectives, exposing how personal bias, self-interest, and incomplete understanding distort truth. This technique, known as the “Rashomon effect,” has entered common language to describe situations where different people provide contradictory accounts of the same event.

Akutagawa’s writing is lean, vivid, and psychologically sharp. He often sets his tales in historical periods but fills them with timeless insights about fear, selfishness, honor, and survival. His stories peel back the surface of polite society to reveal the raw, often brutal forces at work underneath.

The themes explored in Rashomon align closely with the philosophical spirit seen in films like Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, where personal codes, moral decay, and survival under uncertain circumstances define the characters’ struggles. It is no coincidence that this book would appear in a film so focused on loyalty, moral isolation, and the quiet decay of societal structures.

Rashomon is not merely a literary classic because of its style, but because it forces readers to confront an uncomfortable reality: that truth is often slippery, survival can challenge morality, and human nature is far more complex than we might like to believe.