Self-Portraits: Stories

Bringing together novelist Osamu Dazai’s best autobiographical shorts in a single, slim volume, Self-Portraits shows the legendary writer at his best—and worst

“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 pre...