The Real Osamu Dazai: A Life in Twenty Stories

＂Dazai’s brand of egoistic pessimism dovetails organically with the emo chic of this cultural moment and with the inner lives of teenagers of all eras.＂ --Andrew Martin, The New York Times

Best-known for his novels No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, Dazai was also an acclaimed writer of short stories, experimenting with a wide variety of styles and bringing to each work a sophisticated sense of humor, a broad empathy for the human condition and a tremendous literary talent. The twenty stories in this collection include:

• Memories -- An autobiographical tale in which Dazai relates episodes from his own childhood and adolescence, showing his relationship with his family and his tendency towards introspection and self-dramatization


• On the Question of Apparel -- A comic tour-de-force in which Dazai examines the hold that fashion has over him and how it relates to his own pathetic self-image


• A Poor Man’s Got His Pride -- A retelling of a story by 18th-century master of burlesque fiction Ihara Saikaku, about a fallen samurai who lives in poverty


• The Sound of Hammering -- A love story set against the backdrop of the rebuilding of Tokyo after the city was totally destroyed during World War Two


• And sixteen other stories!

By turns hilarious, ironic, introspective, mystical and sarcastic, these stories present a fully rounded portrait of a talented writer who tried several times to take his own life and ultimately succeeded. An introduction by translator James O’Brien gives the background to Dazai’s life and shows how the stories in this book, whether autobiographical or fictional, contribute to an understanding of one of Japan’s greatest writers.

**Recommended for readers 16 years & up. Not intended for high school classroom use due to adult content.**

Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was the pen name of Shuji Tsushima, the tenth of eleven children born to a wealthy landowner and politician in the far north of Japan. Dazai studied French literature at the University of Tokyo, but never received a degree. He first attracted attention in 1933 when magazines began to publish his work. Between 1930 and 1937, he made three suicide attempts, a subject he deals with in many of his short stories. Despite his troubled life and rebellious spirit, Dazai wrote in simple and colloquial style, conveying his personal torments through literature. Dazai’s life ended early in a double suicide with a married lover.

James O’Brien Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has published translations of both modern Japanese fiction and poetry. His most notable translation is the short story collection Crackling Mountain and Other Stories by Osamu Dazai. He has published modern free verse poetry by Hagiwara Sakutaro, Kitahara Hakushu, Miyoshi Tatsuji, Takamura Kotaro, and Murano Shiro, and modern tanka by Yosano Akiko. This poetry appeared in such literary journals as Poet Lore and The Literary Review, and in periodicals of translated work such as Beacons and Metamorphosis.