In 2013, I wrote and translated four short stories by the author Akutagawa Ryunosuke themed around fairy tales for my graduation thesis, titled, appropriately enough: The Fairy-Tales of Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Following this, I challenged myself to translate a short story by Akutagawa for every week of 2014. Several of Akutagawa's stories are only a few lines, which allowed me to devote more time to his longer works. Looking back critically on them now, the translations are often overly literal, but there is some good work in there.
Here are some of my favorites:
A Young Socialist: The first story I translated for this project, and a good example of Akutagawa's short, pithy style.
Mother Mary Dressed in Black: One of Akutagawa's Christian stories, which usually explore the religion's exotic status in premodern times.
Juliano Kichisuke: Another Christian story, probably the one of his that is most sympathetic to the believer.
Tag: A very short, wistful story that I translated early on and decided would make the perfect coda to my project.
Parrot (A Memory of the Great Earthquake)