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When we lived in Mitaka in Tokyo, bombs were falling nearby nearly every day, and I didn’t care if I died, but when I thought that if a bomb fell on my child, she would die without having seen the sea once, it was hard to take. I was born in the middle of the Tsugaru Plains, so I didn’t see the sea until late in life, taking my first trip there around the age of ten. And the great excitement of that became one of my most treasured memories for all time. I wanted to give her the chance to see the sea at least once.

Dazai Osamu, “The Sea”

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A young reporter from a certain magazine sat facing me and said the strangest thing. “Would you like to go to Ueno to see the bums?” “Bums?” “We’d like to photograph you with them.” “With the bums?” “Yes,” he said calmly. Why would they choose me in particular? Perhaps it’s a matter of free association: “Dazai.” “Bum.” “Bums.” “Dazai.”

Dazai Osamu, “Handsome Devils and Cigarettes” from Self Portraits

Dazai wrote in the postscript of “Handsome Devils and Cigarettes”:

When I received the photos, I called my wife over to take a look. “These are the bums in Ueno.” She studied one of the photos and said, “Bums? Is that what a bum looks like?” I got a shock when I happened to notice which face she was peering at. “What’s the matter with you? That’s me. It’s your husband, for God’s sake. The bums are over here.” My wife, whose character is, if anything, excessively serious, is quite incapable of making a joke. She honestly mistook me for a bum.

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With early sunlight splashing on the cliffs, The autumn sky is gorgeous as it is. From afar the harbor almost seems as if It spreads antennae like a snail.

            The harbor city’s autumn days             Resemble mild madness.             I even let my life            Take a seat that day.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Autumn in the Harbor City” from Poems of the Goat

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While I fidget in my utter idleness, A meek sycophant who in the end Is a bumbling fool with claim to nothing.

Nakahara Chūya, “Poem of the Guilty One” from Poems of the Goat

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‘It’s not just how you dress,’ I tried to argue. ‘It goes deeper. I didn’t get the right sort of education. Now take Verlaine’s case, for example …’ What did Verlaine have to do with my red kimono? An abrupt shift of thought even for me, and I felt quite sheepish about the remark. Whenever I’m feeling down and out, though, I remember Verlaine’s doleful countenance and it helps. The very weakness of the man gives me the strength to pull myself together and keep going. I firmly believe that the true glory can emerge only after the most timid introspection. In any even I want to live on, to have a life bereft of means but filled with pride.

Dazai Osamu, “On the Question of Apparel” from Crackling Mountain and Other Stories

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I’ve suffered much along the way. Relating the nature of my suffering though Concerns me very little. And whether my suffering Has any ultimate value to me Is nothing I give any thought to, either.

Nakahara Chūya, “Halfway Through this Life” from Poems of Past Days

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Retrogression by Dazai Osamu is the #1 New Release in Japanese Literature!

"This book aims to piece together the fractured and disorderly lifestyle of one of history's greatest romantics and pairs it with a particular moment in his life; losing the Akutagawa Prize. The ensuing drama that unfolded through private letters, newspaper articles, diaries, obituaries, and fiction created a scandal that disturbed the early Showa literati with its coarse and indecent honesty. Dazai's fiction, fiction about Dazai, speculation and reality intertwined to create an explosive event that not only changed the desired trajectory of his life but also raised issues of discrimination within prominent literary circles and the treatment of mental illness in 1930s Japan." - From the Introduction by translator A. L. Raye

Retrogression also includes annotations and background information on every story, letter, diary, and eulogy, adding history and insights that are difficult to find available in other English translations so far.

You can find more information and free translations on Yobanashi Café. Retrogression is available for purchase in either paperback or eBook format on Amazon.

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[She] remains standing, an odd feeling slowly dawning in her. She senses someone behind, gazing at her. But no one else could possibly be in the room. If anyone… but no, the door is locked. But his odd feeling… well, it’s just her nerves, nothing more. Or so she reasons, again and again, while gazing down and the glimmering bamboo grove. But the more she tries to suppress it, the stronger grows this odd feeling that someone is watching her. Finally she decides to turn around. Despite her fears, nothing is in the room, not even her pet cat. Her nerves have merely played a trick on her. But the very next moment she feels once again an unseen presence in the dark. And what is worse than before, now it looks directly at her as she stands with her back to the window.

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, “The Shadow” from Akutagawa and Dazai: Instances of Literary Adaptation

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Dazai Osamu: “The Early Years”

“I was born in the house which was said to be the wealthiest of the countryside. I had many brothers and sister, and as the youngest child I was spoiled. As a result I was naive, which in turn caused me to become painfully shy. I constantly worry that when others look at me they mistake my shyness as pride.”

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Dazai Osamu: “The Early Years”

“I was born in the house which was said to be the wealthiest of the countryside. I had many brothers and sister, and as the youngest child I was spoiled. As a result I was naive, which in turn caused me to become painfully shy. I constantly worry that when others look at me they mistake my shyness as pride.”

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Happy Birthday, Dazai Osamu!

Dazai Osamu isn’t only popular in Japan, he has fans all over the world! Here are some recent English translations of Dazai’s works you can check out. What better way to celebrate a literary master and his influence on literature and readers than by reading his works! Here are the most recent translations published in English:

Wish Fulfilled: A Vignette by Osamu Dazai  Translated by Maplopo (Published in 2019)

A Shameful Life: (Ningen Shikkaku) Translated by Mark Gibeau (Published in 2018)

Pandora’s Box Translated by Shelly Marshall (Published in 2016)

A New Hamlet Translated by Owen Cooney (Published in 2016)

Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu Translated by Ralph McCarthy (Published in 2011)

Schoolgirl Translated by Allison Markin Powell (Published in 2011)

Dazai Osamu lived over 70 years ago, but what he wrote still resonates with modern audiences. Thank you to the amazing translators who make Dazai’s works available to an English audience! Thank you for making so many literary works available to us that we would have missed out on otherwise. 

You can find a more complete list of translated works by Dazai Osamu on my website, BSD-Bibliophile Online Library.

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人間失格　太宰治と3人の女たち No Longer Human: Dazai Osamu and 3 Women

Based on the last few years of Dazai’s life, this movie explores the relationships Dazai had with three women who greatly inspired his last works, including “The Setting Sun” and “No Longer Human”

You can purchase the movie on Amazon.co.jp or CD Japan and have it shipped to various countries. The film only has closed captions in Japanese, but you can find my English subtitle file here or on the video page in my Online Library.

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Retrogression by Dazai Osamu

Translated by A. L. Raye

"He was not an old man. He was only around 25 years old, but at the same time he was, undoubtedly, an old man. For every year that a normal person lived, this old man lived it three times over." - Dazai Osamu, "Retrogression"

"And so, through Dazai’s own efforts, I hope that a day will come to pass where Dazai’s work will be instinctively understood by a great many people." - Satō Haruo, "A Respectable Yet Tormented Soul: Regarding Dazai Osamu"

"Having been metaphorically torn apart by his critics, every time he finished writing anything - anything at all - regardless of public opinion, the wounds of his humiliation would ache more and more, so keenly and so painfully, that the unfulfilled hollow in his heart spread further and deeper until finally, he died. He was deceived by the illusion of a masterpiece, enchanted by an eternal beauty, carried away by a fever cream and ultimately couldn't even save himself..." - Dazai Osamu, "Retrogression"

"I’ll stab him! I thought. What an absolute scoundrel! It didn’t take long however before I suddenly felt the hot and twisted love you bore towards me, an intense love which reminded me of Nellie from Dostoyevsky’s Humiliated and Insulted, a love that I felt deep within my heart. No. No, how could this be? I couldn’t believe it, I shook my head but that love of yours, concealed behind that cold exterior, felt Dostoyevskian in its deranged passion and made my body burn feverishly at the thought. And of course, you were completely unaware of any of this." - Dazai Osamu, "Letter to Kawabata Yasunari"

"Don’t say behind someone’s back what you can’t say to their face. I followed this principle and for that I was thrown into the looney bin." - Dazai Osamu, "Human Lost"

"Somebody put a live snake in my letterbox. I’m furious! This must be the work of someone who enjoys making fun of unpopular writers who feel the need to check their letterboxes twenty times a day. I was in a strange mood after that, and spent the rest of the day in bed." - Dazai Osamu, "Diary of My Distress"

"I’m jumping at shadows. I feel like my body has been ground up and picked clean, right down to the bone." - Dazai Osamu, "Human Lost"

"It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It really wasn’t supposed to be this way. You of all people should be clearly aware that being a writer exists within a perpetual state of ‘foolishness’." - Dazai Osamu, "Letter to Kawabata Yasunari"

"The cicada realised in the afternoon that it was going to die soon. Ah, it would have been better if I had been happier! I should have fooled around more, with nary a care in the world. Oh, do forgive me, I just wish to fall asleep among the flowers." - Dazai Osamu, "Human Lost"

"He has the kind of romantic spirit of a selfish, good-for-nothing wastrel, but more than that, he has let this seep deep down into the very marrow of his being. The uninhibited yet fragile self flows out of control, and it is the lot in life of this particular variety of man to continually contemplate himself until his self-awareness becomes intertwined with his bones." - Satō Haruo, "A Respectable Yet Tormented Soul: Regarding Dazai Osamu"

"Now, within the limits I have allowed myself, I believe I have accomplished everything I set out to do. As for the rest, I calmly entrust myself to fate." - Dazai Osamu, "January Letter to Satō Haruo from Dazai Osamu"

From the Introduction by translator A. L. Raye:

"This book aims to piece together the fractured and disorderly lifestyle of one of history's greatest romantics and pairs it with a particular moment in his life; losing the Akutagawa Prize. The ensuing drama that unfolded through private letters, newspaper articles, diaries, obituaries, and fiction created a scandal that disturbed the early Showa literati with its coarse and indecent honesty. Dazai's fiction, fiction about Dazai, speculation and reality intertwined to create an explosive event that not only changed the desired trajectory of his life but also raised issues of discrimination within prominent literary circles and the treatment of mental illness in 1930s Japan."

"If we encounter Dazai without taking into account modern ideas of disability, there is a danger we might subject him to the same myth-making mindset that surrounds Van Gough; that of a tortured genius who needed to suffer for his art - or, perhaps more accurately, for our entertainment."

"Dazai was a complicated man, a man who couldn't even decide for himself who he was."

Retrogression also includes annotations and background information on every story, letter, diary, and eulogy, adding history and insights that are difficult to find available in other English translations so far.

You can find more information and free translations on Yobanashi Café. Retrogression is available for purchase in either paperback or eBook format on Amazon.

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Happy Birthday Dazai Osamu-sensei!

To celebrate Dazai Osamu’s birthday here are his top five quotes from my blog:

Quote #5:

" Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes."

- Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human

Quote #4:

"No one realized that I had become insane; when I recovered nobody could tell the difference."

- Dazai Osamu, “Toys” from Dazai Osamu: Selected Stories and Sketches

Quote #3:

Last year nothing happened The year before nothing happened And the year before that nothing happened. …Of course all kinds of things actually did take place, but when I try to recall them now, I experience that same feeling that nothing happened.

- Dazai Osamu, The Setting Sun

Quote #2:

"Artists are supposed to be on the side of the underdog…The artist is a friend to the weak. That’s his first motivation and his ultimate goal."

- Dazai Osamu, “Canis familiaris” from Self Portraits

Quote #1:

"Grown-ups are lonely people. Even if we love each other, we must be careful not to show it publicly. And why all this caution? The answer is simple: because people are too often betrayed and put to public shame. The discovery that you cannot trust people is the first lesson young people learn as they grow up into adults. Adults are adolescents who have been betrayed."

- Dazai Osamu, Tsugaru

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Sweetheart, even though you treated me kindly, My stubbornness prevailed. After we parted last night, I went and drowned my sorry self in booze again. Waking This morning, I remember your kindness And sadly reflect on my vile behavior. And now, I - a complete fake - now I’ll openly confess: Stripped of all dignity, lacking any sense of honesty, I was spurned on by my own illusions, into madness.

When had I ever tried to grasp the feelings of others? - Sweetheart, even though you treated me kindly, I was as stubborn and selfish as a child. Waking to intimations of morning breaking outside, Which somehow register through this pounding in my head, I remember your kindness, and also that drunken other. And as I sadly wonder who I really am on this chilly morning, Something tells me that I am nobody at all.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Untitled” from Poems of the Goat

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Many years ago Tanizaki Junichirou wrote a poem on a scroll for me, and to this day it hangs in the alcove of my drawing room.       Night flies on blackbird’s wings       Shades of a dream -        What is a shadow seen in daylight?

Edogawa Ranpo, “The Phantom Lord” essay (1936) from The Edogawa Ranpo Reader

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Many years ago Tanizaki Junichirou wrote a poem on a scroll for me, and to this day it hangs in the alcove of my drawing room.       Night flies on blackbird’s wings       Shades of a dream -        What is a shadow seen in daylight?

Edogawa Ranpo, “The Phantom Lord” essay (1936) from The Edogawa Ranpo Reader