A01=Osamu Dazai
addiction
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alienation
anime
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anxiety
asian literature
Author_Osamu Dazai
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B06=Ralph McCarthy
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Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FBA
Category=FYB
COP=United States
cult-japanese writer
dark
dazai book
dazai short stories
debt
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depression
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desperation
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fanatical honesty
fictionalized autobiography
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japanese classic
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Language_English
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must read
nihilism
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osamu dazai
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postwar japanese literature
Price_€10 to €20
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psychological
rebel figure
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Product details
- ISBN 9780811232265
- Weight: 268g
- Dimensions: 132 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 06 Feb 2024
- Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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"Art dies the moment it acquires authority." So said Japan's quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nation's obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his death—and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the world—in all its self-involved, self-conscious and self-hating glory. "Art", he wrote, "is 'I'."
In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazai's life mirrored his art and vice versa, as the writer/narrator falls from grace, rises to fame and falls again. Addiction, debt, shame and despair dogged Dazai until his self-inflicted death and yet despite all the lies and deception he resorted to in life, there is an almost fanatical honesty to his writing. And that has made him a hero to generations of readers who see laid bare, in his works, the painful, impossible contradictions inherent in the universal commandment of social life—fit in and do as you are told—as well as the possibility, however desperate, of defiance.
Long out of print, these stories will be a revelation to the legions of new fans of No Longer Human, The Setting Sun and The Flowers of Buffoonery.
The author of the global bestseller No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was famous for confronting head-on the social and moral crises of postwar Japan. He committed suicide by drowning in Tokyo’s Tamagawa Aqueduct.
Ralph McCarthy has lived in Japan for almost two decades. He is the translator of many short stories by Osamu Dazai and of Ryu Murakami’s novel 69.
