Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day
Dirty A poem by Blaire Leon If sex is dirty, why would I do it with someone I love? If sex is dirty, then didn’t we all come from the dirt? What if I like the dirt? What if I want to get dirty? What if I want to roll in the mud until I’m so fucking filthy that I’ll never be clean again? When
Written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the uncontested master of the short story in modern Japanese literature, the stories in this anthology are perfect examples of the the decadent aesthetic, with the gorgeous and the grotesque, the splendid and the sordid interwining in highly polished prose. Among
