Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Written by David Peace

Narrated by Ric Jerrom

Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan's great writers - author of the stories 'Rashomon' and 'In a Bamboo Grove', most famously - who lived through Japan's turbulent Taisho period of 1912 to 1926, including the devastating 1923 Earthquake, only to take his own life at the age of just thirty-five in 1927.

These are the stories of Patient X in one of our iron castles. He will tell his tales to anyone with the ears and the time to listen –

Inspired and informed by Akutagawa's stories, essays and letters, David Peace has fashioned a most extraordinary novel of tales. An intense, passionate, haunting paean to one writer, it also thrillingly explores the act and obsession of writing itself, and the role of the artist, both in public and private life, in times which darkly mirror our own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faber & Faber Audio
• Release date: Apr 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9780571347926

David Peace

David Peace grew up in Yorkshire in the '70's and vividly remembers listening to the hoax tape of the Yorkshire Ripper on his way home from school. He was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003. He lives in Japan.