The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

The post-war period in Japan was one of immense social change as Japanese society adjusted to the shock of defeat and to the occupation of Japan by American forces and their allies. Osamu Dazai's The Setting Sun takes this milieu as its background to tell the story of the decline of a minor aristocratic family. The st...

Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai

'Schoolgirl' is the novella that first established Dazai as a member of Japan's literary elite. Essentially the start of Dazai's career, the 1933 work gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language, and how it illuminated the prevalent social structures of a lost time.