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In 1980, aged seventy and inspired by Jean Renoir’s memoir, Akira Kurosawa began writing his life story in instalments. He called it Gama no Abura, “Toad Oil”, after a folk ointment said to come from a toad sweating with fear at its own reflection. It ends in 1951, when Rashomon won the Golden Lion at Venice, and leaves out the thirty years and most of the 30 features that followed. Kurosawa wrote or co-wrote his own screenplays, and several have been published in English, some with his storyboard paintings. The rest of his story is told by the people who studied and worked with him, from the critic Donald Richie to his script supervisor of more than forty years, Teruyo Nogami. This guide covers his nine key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 key books · 1965–2010 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Akira Kurosawa wrote one book about his life, Something Like an Autobiography (1981; in English 1982), which runs from his childhood to Rashomon in 1951. His screenplays are published in Ran (1986), Rashomon (1987) and Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays (1992). The key books about him are by Donald Richie (1965), Stephen Prince (1991), Stuart Galbraith IV (2002), Teruyo Nogami (2006) and Peter Cowie (2010). Start with Something Like an Autobiography; below is what each of the others covers.
Where to Start with Akira Kurosawa
If you want Kurosawa in his own words
→ Something Like an Autobiography (1981) — his childhood, his apprenticeship and the road to Rashomon.
If you want to read the films as scripts
→ Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays (1992) — Ikiru, Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood.
If you want the whole life, to 1998
→ The Emperor and the Wolf (2002) — a joint biography of Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune.
If you want to see how he made films
→ Waiting on the Weather (2006) — a memoir by his script supervisor.
9 Akira Kurosawa Books, in Order
The Films of Akira Kurosawa
A film-by-film study by the American critic Donald Richie, published by the University of California Press. It was the first English-language academic book on a Japanese director and the first on Kurosawa. Later editions in 1984 and 1996 added the films that came after.
Something Like an Autobiography
Published in Japan by Iwanami Shoten in 1981 as Gama no Abura and in English by Knopf in 1982, translated by Audie E. Bock. Its 54 chapters cover his childhood, the 1923 Kantō earthquake, his elder brother Heigo, five years as an assistant director at P.C.L. (later Toho) under Kajiro Yamamoto, and his first films as director. It stops at the 1951 Venice Film Festival and Rashomon’s Golden Lion.
Ran
The screenplay of his 1985 adaptation of King Lear, written with Hideo Oguni and Masato Ide and translated by Tadashi Shishido, published by Shambhala together with Kurosawa’s own storyboard paintings for the film and a short headnote by him.
Rashomon
The script of the 1950 film, published by Rutgers University Press in its Films in Print series with Donald Richie as editor. Rashomon, adapted from stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, tells one killing four contradictory ways, and its Golden Lion at Venice in 1951 introduced Kurosawa to audiences outside Japan.
The Warrior’s Camera
A study by the American film scholar Stephen Prince of Kurosawa’s visual style and of how his films track Japan’s postwar development and his own political and social hopes. Princeton University Press published a revised and expanded edition in 1999, with two chapters on the late films and his influence on Scorsese, Spielberg and George Lucas.
Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays
Three screenplays in one Faber and Faber volume: Ikiru (1952), about a civil servant with terminal cancer; Seven Samurai (1954), about a village that hires samurai to fight off bandits; and Throne of Blood (1957), his Macbeth set in feudal Japan.
The Emperor and the Wolf
An 823-page joint biography of Kurosawa and the actor Toshiro Mifune, from their early lives to their deaths in the late 1990s, including their estrangement. Galbraith wrote it over five years after finding no English-language biography of Kurosawa. The New York Times praised the research while faulting the parallel-lives structure.
Waiting on the Weather
A memoir, illustrated with her own sketches, by the woman who joined Kurosawa as a script assistant on Rashomon (1950) and stayed until Madadayo (1993). It is arranged by topic rather than date and covers the making of Dersu Uzala, Shintaro Katsu’s departure from Kagemusha, the rift with Mifune and Kurosawa’s working methods and rages. Published in English by Stone Bridge Press.
Akira Kurosawa
A large illustrated book from Rizzoli for the centenary of Kurosawa’s birth, with introductions by Donald Richie, Martin Scorsese and Kurosawa’s daughter Kazuko. Cowie arranges the films by theme rather than date: literary adaptations, samurai epics, postwar melodramas, thrillers and the partnership with Mifune.
In What Order to Read Akira Kurosawa
Begin with Something Like an Autobiography, because it is the only place Kurosawa tells his own story, and it explains the early films he discusses. Then read the screenplays alongside the films they belong to: Rashomon, then the Seven Samurai volume, then Ran.
The memoir stops in 1951, so for the rest of his life read Galbraith’s The Emperor and the Wolf, which runs to his death in 1998, and Nogami’s Waiting on the Weather for life on set. Richie and Prince are criticism, best read once you have seen most of the films.
A reading path
1. Something Like an Autobiography (1981)
2. Rashomon (1987)
3. Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays (1992)
4. Waiting on the Weather (2006)
5. The Emperor and the Wolf (2002)
More Books by and about Akira Kurosawa
Beyond the 9 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other books by Kurosawa
2
2 books · 1968–2008
- 1968Ikiruthe screenplay, written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni (Lorrimer, Modern Film Scripts)
- 2008Akira Kurosawa: Interviewshis interviews, edited by Bert Cardullo (University Press of Mississippi)
More books about Kurosawa
1
1 book · 2016
- 2016Kurosawa’s RashomonPaul Anderer on his brother Heigo, the destruction of Tokyo in 1923 and 1945, and his early politics
The years · 1910–1998
Quick facts about Akira Kurosawa
- Known for
- Akira Kurosawa is known as the Japanese director of Rashomon and Seven Samurai, who wrote or co-wrote his own screenplays and whose only book about himself stops at the moment he became famous abroad.
- 1910
- Born in Ōi, Tokyo
- 1943
- First film, Sanshiro Sugata
- 1951
- Rashomon wins the Golden Lion
- 1998
- Dies in Setagaya, Tokyo
- Born
- 23 March 1910, Ōi, Ebara District (now Shinagawa), Tokyo
- Died
- 6 September 1998, Setagaya, Tokyo, aged 88, after a stroke
- Films
- 30 features, from Sanshiro Sugata (1943) to Madadayo (1993)
- Co-writers
- Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima, among others
- Honours
- Golden Lion for Rashomon (1951), Palme d’Or for Kagemusha (1980), Academy Honorary Award (1990)
- Memoir
- Gama no Abura (1981), in English Something Like an Autobiography
The red mark is 1981: Something Like an Autobiography, the only book in which Kurosawa tells his own life.
How Akira Kurosawa Wrote: Scripts by Committee, a Memoir that Stops Early
Kurosawa rarely wrote a screenplay alone. Shinobu Hashimoto worked on nine of his films, Hideo Oguni co-wrote twelve and Ryuzo Kikushima eight, and his sources ranged from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Rashomon) to Shakespeare (Throne of Blood, Ran) and Dostoevsky (The Idiot).
He also thought in pictures. For Ran he painted storyboards for the film, and the Shambhala edition prints them with the screenplay, so you can follow a scene from painting to script to screen.
His memoir is equally deliberate in what it leaves out. It ends in 1951, before most of the films he is known for, and its chapter on the suicide of his brother Heigo, titled “A Story I Don’t Want to Tell”, was written nearly fifty years after the event. For everything after 1951, he left the films to speak for him.
Frequently asked questions about Akira Kurosawa’s books
How many books has Akira Kurosawa written?
One book about his own life, Something Like an Autobiography (1981), plus his screenplays, which are published separately. This page lists nine key books: four by Kurosawa (the memoir and the screenplay books Ran, Rashomon and Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays) and five about him by Donald Richie, Stephen Prince, Stuart Galbraith IV, Teruyo Nogami and Peter Cowie.
What are Akira Kurosawa’s books in order?
By Kurosawa: Ikiru (screenplay, 1968), Something Like an Autobiography (1981), Ran (1986), Rashomon (1987), Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays (1992) and Akira Kurosawa: Interviews (2008). About him: Richie (1965), Prince (1991), Galbraith (2002), Nogami (2006), Cowie (2010) and Anderer (2016).
Where should I start with Akira Kurosawa’s books?
Something Like an Autobiography. It is the only book in which he tells his own story, from his childhood in Tokyo to the Golden Lion for Rashomon in 1951.
What is Akira Kurosawa’s most famous book?
Something Like an Autobiography, first published in Japanese in 1981 as Gama no Abura (“Toad Oil”) and in English by Knopf in 1982, translated by Audie E. Bock.
Does Something Like an Autobiography cover Seven Samurai?
No. The book ends with the 1951 Venice Film Festival and Rashomon, so Seven Samurai (1954) and everything after are not covered. For those years, read Galbraith’s The Emperor and the Wolf or Nogami’s Waiting on the Weather.
Can you read the Seven Samurai screenplay?
Yes. It is published in English in Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays (Faber and Faber, 1992), together with Ikiru and Throne of Blood.
Is there a full biography of Akira Kurosawa?
The fullest in English is Stuart Galbraith IV’s The Emperor and the Wolf (2002), an 823-page joint biography of Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune that runs to both men’s deaths in the late 1990s.
Was A Fistful of Dollars copied from Yojimbo?
Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was an unauthorised, almost scene-by-scene remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961). Toho sued on Kurosawa’s behalf and won.
Why was Kurosawa removed from Tora! Tora! Tora!?
He was hired to direct the Japanese half of the 20th Century Fox film and shot for about three weeks from early December 1968. On Christmas Eve the studio announced he had left because of “fatigue”, in effect firing him. Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda finished the Japanese scenes, and Kurosawa had his name removed from the credits.
When did Akira Kurosawa die?
On 6 September 1998, aged 88, after a stroke, in Setagaya, Tokyo. His last film was Madadayo (1993).
Footnotes
- Akira Kurosawa — Wikipedia
- Something Like an Autobiography — Wikipedia
- Something Like an Autobiography — UPI review, 1982
- The Emperor and the Wolf — Wikipedia
- Waiting on the Weather — Stone Bridge Press
- Akira Kurosawa: Master of Cinema — DGA Quarterly, 2010
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.”
— Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography (1982)
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