Boris Akunin’s "Encyclopedia of Literary Crime," a summary

Grigory Chkhartishvili’s book was published in 1999. This alphabetical martyrology describes the tragic endings of literary figures of all times. The reference book focuses on the circumstances of writers’ deaths. The author omits the creative achievements of prose writers and poets, concentrating on the reasons for their voluntary deaths. The writer excluded accidental writers, retaining only those who made a significant contribution to culture.

The work serves as an appendix to Chkhartishvili’s extensive study, "The Writer and Suicide." The book serves as the documentary basis for his main philosophical treatise. It provides specific historical examples of the fates of artists.

Suicide statistics reveal professional patterns. Nearly two-thirds of the martyrology are poets. Philosophers commit suicide less often — one in six. Playwrights commit suicide less often than other literary figures. The proportion of women reaches one-ninth of the list. The English-speaking, German-speaking, French-speaking, and Russian-speaking cultures have the highest suicide rates.

Ancient philosophers and the right to die

The ancient tradition viewed voluntary death as a logical outcome. Stoic philosophers passed away without emotion. The ancient Greek thinker Zeno of Cition hanged himself due to a bruised finger. He perceived this minor injury as a call from the earth. His successor, Cleanthes, abstained from food during his illness. He recovered. The old man decided to continue his fast after his recovery. Democritus stopped eating due to old age. He delayed his death for three days with the smell of hot flatbread.

The Athenian rhetorician Isocrates starved himself to death after the Greeks’ military defeat by the Macedonians. The Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes poisoned himself at the age of eighty. The Greek philosopher Empedocles threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna. He wanted to understand the structure of volcanoes. Roman leaders committed suicide for political reasons. The historian Cremutius Cordus starved himself to death to avoid execution. The writer Petronius Arbiter slit his wrists. He enjoyed conversations with friends in his final hours. Seneca slit his wrists and took poison on Nero’s orders. Lucan also slit his wrists at the emperor’s behest.

Japanese skincare aesthetics

Japanese literature exhibits a peculiar attitude toward suicide. The classic writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa took a lethal dose of veronal. He suffered a panicky fear of insanity. Dazai Osamu committed double suicide, shinju, drowning himself in a rainwater tank along with his lover. The writer Yasunari Kawabata died of gas poisoning. He left no suicide note.

Yukio Mishima transformed his death into an artistic act. He committed ritual hara-kiri after a failed military mutiny. His friend and literary mentor, Hasuda Zenmei, shot himself on the Malayan front in protest against Japan’s surrender. Novelist Kano Ashihei concealed his suicide by disguising it as a heart attack. His relatives concealed the truth for twelve years. Japanese critic Eto Jun slit his wrists two weeks after publishing his autobiography.

European Romanticism and Disillusionment

European writers often took their own lives under the pressure of poverty. The English poet Thomas Chatterton swallowed arsenic at the age of eighteen, tired of constant poverty. The German playwright Heinrich von Kleist shot himself on the shores of Lake Wannsee. The terminally ill Henriette Vogel died with him. The French Symbolist Gérard de Nerval hanged himself on the Rue du Vieux Lantern in Paris. This occurred during a bout of mental illness.

British writer Virginia Woolf drowned herself in a river. She filled the pockets of her dress with stones. Woolf feared the impending madness and horrors of a world war. French novelist Romain Gary shot himself in his apartment. He sought to avoid physical decline. Italian novelist Cesare Pavese took sleeping pills at the height of his literary fame. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and his wife Lotte poisoned themselves in Brazil. They could not bear the news of Nazi military victories.

The Italian philosopher Girolamo Cardano starved himself to death. He had calculated the day of his death in advance using his horoscope and decided to prove the accuracy of his prediction. The Austrian thinker Otto Weininger shot himself in Beethoven’s house. He could not reconcile the asceticism he preached with his own sensuality. The French poet Jacques Rigaud created the humorous "Agence Generale de Suicide." He was undergoing treatment for heroin addiction and ultimately committed suicide.

Paul Lafargue and his wife, Laura, injected themselves with hydrocyanic acid. They didn’t want to wait for a painful old age. Greek poet Kostas Karyotakis initially attempted to drown himself. The attempt failed. He then shot himself and left a note reading, "I strongly advise against drowning anyone who can swim." Swiss poet Henri Roorda shot himself in Lausanne. Prior to this, police had banned him from holding a practical conference on suicide.

Russian Literature and the Existential Deadlock

Russian writers were deeply affected by their clashes with the state and everyday life. Alexander Radishchev took poison and attempted to kill himself with a razor. He feared the threat of further Siberian exile. Vsevolod Garshin threw himself down a flight of stairs. He was escaping agonizing insomnia and impending madness. Nikolai Uspensky slit his throat with a blunt penknife. The tragedy occurred near the Smolensky Market in Moscow.

The twentieth century brought a wave of new upheavals. Sergei Yesenin slit his wrists and hanged himself in Leningrad’s Angleterre Hotel. Vladimir Mayakovsky shot himself in Moscow. He was experiencing a severe creative and personal crisis. Marina Tsvetaeva hanged herself in Yelabuga. The poet suffered from poverty and social isolation. Alexander Fadeyev shot himself at his dacha. He realized the death of Soviet art under the oppression of the Party. Poet Boris Ryzhy hanged himself from his balcony door. He left behind a successful career as a seismologist and literary acclaim.

Prose writer Andrei Sobol shot himself on Tverskoy Boulevard near the Timiryazev monument. He was vilified by orthodox critics. Poet Nadezhda Lvova shot herself with a Browning. The weapon was a gift from Valery Bryusov. Writer Leonid Dobychin disappeared after being subjected to ideological treatment. He paid off his debts and sent a letter promising to leave for distant lands. His body was never found.

New World Writers

American writers have contributed generously to the martyrology. Ernest Hemingway shot himself with a hunting rifle. He suffered from paranoid fears and underwent electroshock treatment. Argentine-Uruguayan novelist Horacio Quiroga poisoned himself with cyanide in a charity hospital. Argentine essayist Leopoldo Lugones drank poison on a remote resort island. In his dying message, he wrote, "I ask to be buried directly in the ground, without a coffin." Cuban dissident Reinaldo Arenas poisoned himself with barbiturates in New York. He suffered from AIDS and homesickness.

American poet Sylvia Plath stuck her head in a gas oven. She locked the door after making breakfast for her children. Anne Sexton was poisoned by exhaust fumes in her garage. She had been treated for depression for many years. Writer Malcolm Lowry took a fatal dose of sleeping pills. The tragedy occurred after a noisy family argument in the English countryside. Writer Neal Cassidy took a dangerous combination of alcohol and Nembutal in Mexico.

Colombian poet José Asunción Silva shot himself in the heart. The day before, a doctor had marked the ideal spot on his chest. American novelist John Kennedy Toole died of car exhaust fumes. Publishers had rejected his manuscripts for years. The book won him a Pulitzer Prize posthumously. Richard Brautigan shot himself in Montana after eight years of seclusion. Jack London took a lethal dose of morphine. He suffered from alcoholism and uremia.

Victims of war and totalitarianism

Global conflicts left deep scars on surviving authors. Italian chemist and writer Primo Levi threw himself down a stairwell decades after his liberation from Auschwitz. Memories of the camp haunted him throughout his life. Polish poet Tadeusz Borowski was gassed. He repeated his camp experience and returned to the gas chamber.

The German thinker Walter Benjamin took poison on the Spanish border. He feared being handed over to the Gestapo. The Austrian poet Paul Celan threw himself into the Seine. He was unable to overcome concentration camp syndrome. The German playwright Ernst Toller hanged himself in a Manhattan hotel. The exile did not believe in the victory over fascism. The Czech critic Karel Teige took poison right at the moment of his arrest. His wife immediately jumped out of a window. Arthur Koestler poisoned himself with sleeping pills along with his wife. He lost his battle with leukemia and Parkinson’s disease.

Exotic methods of death

Writers chose suicide methods based on philosophical calculation or succumbed to a momentary weakness. The Spanish philosopher Eugenio Imaz apologized to friends at dinner. He went into another room and hanged himself with his own suspenders. The French hoaxer Paul Masson inhaled ether. He fell and drowned in the river at a depth of about thirty centimeters. The Serbian critic Damian Pavlovic hit his head on a compass due to unrequited love.

American journalist Hunter Stockton Thompson shot himself in his home. He asked that his ashes be scattered by cannon fire accompanied by a volley of colorful fireworks. Chinese poet Li Bai drowned in a river after attempting to embrace the moon’s reflection. French philosopher Antonio Mancinelli refused medical treatment. His hands and tongue were amputated for criticizing the Pope. He chose to die of his wounds.