In these twelve interconnected tales, David Peace--acclaimed author of the Red Riding Quartet, Occupied City, and Tokyo Year Zero--weaves fact and fiction as he takes up the brief but fiercely lived life of the early-twentieth-century Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Unique and offbeat, Patient X delves into Akutagawa's rich and complicated private life: his fears and battles with mental illness; his complex reaction to the Westernization of Japan; his exacting creative process; and his suicide, weaving these facets into a hauntingly evocative portrait. But Patient X is more than a paean to one remarkable writer: it is also an incandescent exploration of the act and obsession of writing itself, and of the role of the artist in times that darkly mirror our own.
Physical Info: 2.3 x 20.3 x 13.2 cm (0.36 kg) 336 pages
SKU: 9780525564119
Barcode: 9780525564119