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Self-Portraits - Osamu Dazai & Ralph McCarthy

By Osamu Dazai & Ralph McCarthy

Release Date: 2024-02-06

Genre: Fiction & Literature

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Bringing together novelist Osamu Dazaiā€™s best autobiographical shorts in a single, slim volume, Self-Portraits shows the legendary writer at his bestā€”and worst

ā€œArt dies the moment it acquires authority.ā€ So said Japanā€™s quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nationā€™s obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his deathā€”and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the worldā€”in all its self-involved, self-conscious, and self-hating glory. ā€œArt,ā€ he wrote, ā€œis ā€˜I.ā€™ā€

In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazaiā€™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 lifeā€”fit in and do as you are toldā€”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. 

Self-Portraits - Osamu Dazai & Ralph McCarthy

By Osamu Dazai & Ralph McCarthy

Release Date: 2024-02-06

Genre: Fiction & Literature

(0 ratings)
Read Download
Bringing together novelist Osamu Dazaiā€™s best autobiographical shorts in a single, slim volume, Self-Portraits shows the legendary writer at his bestā€”and worst

ā€œArt dies the moment it acquires authority.ā€ So said Japanā€™s quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nationā€™s obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his deathā€”and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the worldā€”in all its self-involved, self-conscious, and self-hating glory. ā€œArt,ā€ he wrote, ā€œis ā€˜I.ā€™ā€

In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazaiā€™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 lifeā€”fit in and do as you are toldā€”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. 

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