Self-Portraits: Stories

"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 establishment, 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