Bullfight

Tsugami, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper in war-scarred Osaka, agrees to sponsor a bullfight. For months this great gamble consumes him, making him as wary and combative as if he were in a ring himself. As he becomes ever more distant, his lover Sakiko is unsure whether she would like to see him succeed or be destroyed.

As much a story of post-war Japan as it is about the country's special brand of bullfighting, this novella is a masterly exploration of hope, ambition, and despair. Bullfight won Yasushi Inoue the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and established him as one of Japan's most acclaimed authors. From the planning of a bullfight, through Tsugami's struggle, his focus and his solitude, he crafts something intensely memorable—a profound and compelling existential tale.