About the Author

He was born in Tokyo in 1958 and lives in Nagoya. He has been working for an advertising agency as an art director for over thirty years. After about ten years of working there, he began to wonder why he spent so much time and energy in jobs connected to money and finance in addition to doing productive specialty jobs, and he began to think about what money actually is. He wrote his first short story, A Moneyless Country, in 1993. It is based on his idea that money is only a tool invented by humans (an animal species), that it is not essential for sustaining our lives and that a moneyless society is the ideal human society. The story was published in Japan in 2003. Since then he has been spreading his unique ideas through his skits, rakugo (traditional Japanese humorous story telling), and songs. His other books include: A Moneyless Country – Part 2 –, Marriage and Family, A Moneyless Country – Part 3 –, The Role of Hospitals, A Moneyless Country – Part 4 –, School and Education; and Ryujin Nagashima’s Black Short Stories.

Website: http://www.2u/biglobe.ne.jp/`nagaryu