In a Grove
In a Grove (Yabu no naka) is a Japanese short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, first published in 1922. It is also known as In a Bamboo Grove. The tale centers on the death of young samurai Kanazawa no Takehiro. His body is found in a bamboo grove near Kyoto after a night of violence.
The story is told through seven first‑person testimonies given to a police commissioner. The witnesses are a woodcutter, a traveling Buddhist priest, a hōmen who captured the famous criminal Tajōmaru, Masago’s mother‑in‑law, Tajōmaru himself, Masago (speaking at a temple), and Takehiro’s ghost speaking through a medium. Each account offers different details about the night’s events, including the sword wound, the rape, and who killed whom, so the truth remains unclear.
The seven sections are presented as direct speech, and the first four speak to the magistrate. The work is famous for showing how people’s memories and motives can make the truth unclear.
In a Grove helped popularize the idea of the “Rashomon effect”—the ambiguity of truth when different people tell conflicting stories. It inspired Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashōmon and has been adapted into opera, a graphic novel, and other works.
The story has appeared in English several times: a 1952 translation by Takashi Kojima, a 1988 translation by James O’Brien (titled Within a Grove), and a 2007 translation by Jay Rubin (titled In a Bamboo Grove). It remains a key work in discussions of perspective and truth.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:23 (CET).