In Osamu Dazai’s 1948 cult-classic novel, No Longer Human, which turns 75 this year, the protagonist Yozo Oba might bring some of these characters to mind as he whiles away his days in 1930s Tokyo.

Dazai becomes an active intermediary between Yozo and the reader. We see Yozo not through his own eyes, as happens in No Longer Human, but through his creator’s.

The Japanese novelist’s dark-hearted comedies are at once unhinged and brilliant. Osamu Dazai, 1924. Where to begin the story? It’s tempting to start at the end—on the morning of Osamu Dazai ...

Osamu Dazai, trans. from the Japanese by Sam Bett. New Directions, $14.95 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-0-8112-3454-2 This beguiling novella from Dazai (1909–1948) revisits the protagonist from the ...