Probably the single most famous Japanese story of all time. Made into one of the most copied Japanese films of the great master Akira Kurasawa. And relentlessly copied in literature. If you read only one piece of Japanese literature, you owe it to yourself to become acquainted with this strange, haunting, frightening little tale.
later I see I originally neglected to mention that this story is by Akutagawa, often nicknamed "the Japanese Poe." But perhaps a much more important figure in Japan than Poe was in the U.S.