Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as The Setting Sun (Shayō) and No Longer Human (Ningen Shikkaku), are considered modern-day classics in Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai's stories have intrigued the minds of many readers.
Born Shūji Tsushima, he began his literary career in 1927, when he took interest in gidayū, a form of chanted narration used in the puppet theaters. He also edited a number of student publications and contributed some of his own works. He went on to publish a short literature magazine with some friends, and subsequently became the leader of his university's newspaper team.
Tsushima's growing success was put to a halt when he learned that his idol, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, had committed suicide. From then on, Tsushima started to neglect his studies, and spent the majority of his allowance on clothes, alcohol, and prostitutes. He also dabbled with Marxism, which at the time was heavily suppressed by the government. On the night of December 10, 1929, he committed his first suicide attempt, but survived and was able to graduate the following year. In 1930, he enrolled in the French Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University and promptly stopped studying again. In October, he ran away with a geisha named Hatsuyo Oyama and was formally disowned by his family.
Nine days after being expelled from Tokyo Imperial University, Tsushima attempted suicide by drowning off a beach in Kamakura with another woman, 19-year-old bar hostess Shimeko Tanabe. Shimeko died, but Tsushima lived, having been rescued by a fishing boat. He was charged as an accomplice in her death. Shocked by the events, Tsushima's family intervened to drop a police investigation. His allowance was reinstated and he was released of any charges. In December, Tsushima recovered at Ikarigaseki and married Hatsuyo there.
Soon after, Tsushima was arrested for his involvement with the banned Japanese Communist Party and, upon learning this, his elder brother Bunji promptly cut off his allowance again. Tsushima went into hiding, but Bunji, despite their estrangement, managed to get word to him that charges would be dropped and the allowance reinstated yet again if he solemnly promised to graduate and swear off any involvement with the party. Tsushima accepted the offer.
Tsushima kept his promise and settled down a bit. He managed to obtain the assistance of established writer Masuji Ibuse, whose connections helped him get his works published and establish his reputation. The next few years were productive for Tsushima. He wrote at a feverish pace and used the pen name "Osamu Dazai" for the first time in a short story called "Ressha" (Train) in 1933: his first experiment with the first-person autobiographical style that later became his trademark.
However, in 1935 it started to become clear to Dazai that he would not graduate. He failed to obtain a job at a Tokyo newspaper as well. He finished The Final Years, which was intended to be his farewell to the world, and tried to hang himself March 19, 1935, failing yet again. Less than three weeks later, Dazai developed acute appendicitis and was hospitalized. In the hospital, he became addicted to Pabinal, a morphine-based painkiller. After fighting the addiction for a year, in October 1936 he was taken to a mental institution, locked in a room and forced to quit immediately.
The treatment lasted over a month. During this time Dazai's wife Hatsuyo committed adultery with his best friend Zenshirō Kodate. This eventually came to light and Dazai attempted to commit double suicide with his wife. They both took sleeping pills, but neither one died, so he divorced her. Dazai quickly remarried, this time to a middle school teacher named Michiko Ishihara. Their first daughter, Sonoko, was born in June 1941.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Dazai wrote a number of subtle novels and short stories that are autobiographical in nature. His first story, Gyofukuki, is a grim fantasy involving suicide. Other stories written during this period include Dōke no hana (The Flowers of Buffoonery, 1935), Gyakkō (Against the Current, 1935), Kyōgen no kami (The God of Farce, 1936), an epistolary novel called Kyokō no Haru (False Spring, 1936) and those published in his 1936 collection Bannen (Declining Years), which describe his sense of personal isolation and his debauchery.
When Japan entered the Pacific War in December 1941, Dazai was excused from the draft due to his chronic chest problems, as he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The censors became more reluctant to accept Dazai's offbeat work, but he managed to publish quite a bit anyway, remaining one of very few authors who managed to get this kind of material accepted in this period.
A number of the stories which Dazai published during World War II were retellings of stories by Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693). His wartime works included Udaijin Sanetomo (Minister of the Right Sanetomo, 1943), Tsugaru (1944), Pandora no hako (Pandora's Box, 1945–46), and Otogizōshi (Fairy Tales, 1945) in which he retold a number of old Japanese fairy tales with "vividness and wit."
Dazai's house was burned down twice in the American bombing of Tokyo, but Dazai's family escaped unscathed, with a son, Masaki, born in 1944. His third child, daughter Satoko, who later became a famous writer under the pseudonym Yūko Tsushima, was born in May 1947.
Soon after the war, Dazai reached the peak of his popularity with his two famous works, The Setting Sun and No Longer Human. The Setting Sun was based on a diary of a woman who he encountered in 1941, who bore him a daughter in 1941. No Longer Human was Dazai's last major work, detailing the life of Oba Yozo, a man tormented by inner conflict between his self-destructive tendencies and his societal obligations. This novel was said to be a reflection of Dazai's own life, as the story contains many parallels to the author's life.
Dazai's condition worsened on 1947. He became an alcoholic and his health was rapidly deteriorating. It was during this time that he met Tomie Yamazaki, a widow who had lost her husband just ten days after their marriage. Dazai effectively abandoned his wife and children and moved in with Tomie.
In the spring of 1948, Dazai worked on a novelette scheduled to be serialized in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, titled Guddo bai (the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "Goodbye"). It was never finished. On June 13 1948, Dazai and Tomie drowned themselves in the rain-swollen Tamagawa canal. Their bodies were not discovered until six days later. His reasons for taking his own life remains unknown. Was it despair brought upon by his illness? An impulsive decision brought upon by his alcoholism? A final conclusion he reached after a lifetime of emptiness and lamentation? It's hard to say for certain.
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Originally Posted by Skull
okey interesting towards her "I say Nothing Snooper !2 Litle joke aside she is interesting is she not Hisui from tsukihime ?
