Description: Fourteen tales selected from the breadth of Dazai's fabled career, some never before seen in English
Brief description: Ralph McCarthy has lived in Japan for almost two decades. He is the translator of two collections of stories by Osamu Dazai, "Self Portraits" and "Blue Bamboo," and of Ryu Murakami's novel 69.
Review Quotes: Dazai was an aristocratic tramp, a self-described delinquent, yet he wrote with the forbearance of a fasting scribe.--Patti Smith