Suzanne Leal

I have very little knowledge of Japanese literature.

So this was very new to me and quite alienating in many ways.

What it is, this book, is it's 12 stories taken from the life of the Japanese writer Akutagawa.

And it starts from his birth.

and ends with his suicide.

There are no problems in revealing that.

The whole book really speaks about the suicide that will come with this quite troubled man.

It's the story of an artist in turmoil.

It's the story of an artist who grows up in the shadow of his mother's early death, having died in a psychiatric asylum.

And it's the story of a man who is in great anguish and for whom...

insomnia and the need to keep writing follow him through a fairly tortured life, really.

That's right.

Look, the reason I explain that is because this book, in my view, does not stand alone.

So you can't read the book, Patient X, the new book by the very well-known David Peace, without also knowing about the writer on which this story is based.

For me, that was a problem.

I do believe the book should stand on its own and I do believe that people should get what they need out of a book, whether it's a small amount and glossing on the surface or whether they can look at what's described beneath it.

Had this, for example, been a book about Jane Austen, 12 stories in the life of Jane Austen, because...

I know about Jane Austen, I know her work, it would have been so much more compelling for me.

Because my knowledge of Japanese literature, and this writer in particular, is so minimal, I needed to look back at what he writes in order to come to the book without confusion.

For me, yes.