SelfPortraits: Stories

Bringing together novelist Osamu Dazais best autobiographical shorts in a single, slim volume, SelfPortraits shows the legendary writer at his bestand worstArt dies the moment it acquires authority. So said Japans quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nations obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his deathand the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the worldin all its selfinvolved, selfconscious, and selfhating glory. Art, he wrote, is I.In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazais 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 selfinflicted 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 lifefit in and do as you are toldas 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.