No One Knows

“Dazai was an aristocratic tramp, a self-described delinquent, yet he wrote with the forbearance of a fasting scribe. ” – Patti Smith “Praise for Self-Portraits: As acidic and addictive as a bag of sour candy.” – Publishers Weekly “Dazai’s work will either pull you out of a deep depression or crack your rose-colored glasses; there is no in-between.” – The Millions “Dazai is thoroughly contemporary in his depiction of the older generation’s casual exploitation of the young for its own ends.” – Andrew Martin - Electric Lit ““Ultimately, it is not individuals Dazai seemed to dislike but the constraints on personal and societal freedom that force people into falsehood. His characters despise that people can’t be honest, and that they themselves can’t either learn to be false or have the courage to break away.” “ – Zito Madu - The Washington Post

Osamu Dazai was born in 1909 into a powerful landowning family of northern Japan. A brilliant student, he entered the French department of Tokyo University in 1930, but later boasted that in the five years before he left without a degree, he had never attended a lecture. Dazai was famous for confronting head-on the social and moral crises of postwar Japan before he committed suicide by throwing himself into Tokyo’s Tamagawa Aqueduct. His body was found on what would have been his 39th birthday.

RALPH MCCARTHY has lived in Japan for almost two decades. He is the translator of two collections of stories by Osamu Dazai, “Self Portraits” and “Blue Bamboo,” and of Ryu Murakami’s novel 69.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.