"This volume presents in translation for the first time a collection of twenty-five stories and novellas representative of Japanese authors who worked in the modernist idiom from 1913 to 1938. Its prefatory materials provide a systematic overview of the literary movement's salient features - anti-naturalism, cosmopolitanism, the concept of the double self, and actionism - and describe how 'modanizumu' evolved from its early "jagged edges" into a sophisticated yet popular expression of Japanese urban life in the first half of the twentieth century. The 'modanist' style, characterized by youthful exuberance, a tongue-in-cheek tone, and narrative techniques like superimposition, is illustrated."--BOOK JACKET.