Tales of a Lascivious Gentleman

by Osamu Dazai (author) and Tom Pinch (translator)

 

1946. Japan has fallen. Hunger, poverty, foreign occupation. Yet, love and desire continue to plague men and women, same as they ever have.

 

Osamu Dazai was NOT a woman's ideal man. A dissipated life and an early suicide. There is a lot of that here; but also something unexpected: a tender and sensitive insight into the female psyche from a man you would least expect -- from the image of himself he tries to project -- to know the first thing about it. 

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The Author

Shūji Tsushima (1909-1948) ("Osamu Dazai") was a legendary Japanese author. A descendant of a prominent plebeian family from far-away Tohoku (Northern Honshu), he quickly became the black sheep of the family, on account of his failure in all career projects invented for him, multiple "inappropriate liaisons" (older women, married women, fallen women, teenagers), his communist leanings, alcoholism, experimentation with drugs, and repeat failed suicides. Yet, on account of his style and the themes of his works he remains one of Japan's most widely read authors.