Self portraits : stories / by Osamu Dazai ; translated by Ralph F. McCarthy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dazai, Osamu, 1909-1948, author.

Contributor:

McCarthy, Ralph F., translator, writer of introduction.

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Japanese fiction--Translations into English.

Japanese fiction.

Dazai, Osamu, 1909-1948--Translations into English.

Dazai, Osamu.

Japan--Social life and customs--Fiction.

Japan.

Genre:

short stories.

Short stories.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 232 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2024.

Summary:

""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 estab- lishment, 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 Flowers of Buffoonery"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

"New Directions Paperbook 1586" -- title page verso.

Translated from the Japanese.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Keyes Fund bookplate.

Other Edition:

Reproduction of: Dazai, Osamu, 1909-1948. Tokyo ; New York : Kodansha International (230 pages ; 22 cm)

ISBN:

9780811232265

0811232263

OCLC:

1390190490

Publisher Number:

99995851576