There is no doubt that Japanese literature has been one of the outstanding successes for British bookshops in recent years: almost half of the best-selling translated fiction titles in 2024 were from Japan. Most Japanese fiction translated into English fits into broad categories – cats, crime, coffee shops – but one surprising bestseller stands alone.
Sales of books by Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide at the age of 38 in 1948, have increased over the years. His best-known novel, No Longer Human (1948), has sold over 75,000 copies in the UK alone. An intense semi-autobiographical account of one man’s isolation, it was Dazai’s last work of fiction completed before his death.
Born in 1909 to a wealthy family in the north of Japan, Dazai was a bright student, but he showed early signs of being mentally ill, making two suicide attempts by the age of 21. He lived what his translator Donald Keane called “a life of wild dissipation”, which included addiction to morphine and multiple relationships.
Until recently, Dazai’s work was only available in imported volumes from the American publisher New Directions. But this month, Penguin Classics took advantage of Dazai’s unexpected popularity by publishing the first UK edition of his work in nearly 70 years: a collection of short stories from the female perspective, titled Schoolgirl.
Polly Barton, who selected and translated the stories into English, tells me that, while Dazai may be relatively new to English-speaking readers in Japan, he is “one of the big three, along with Yukio Mishima and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, who everyone talks about as the fathers of modern Japanese literature”.
In recent years, Barton says, he has been discovered by a new generation of young readers. “What I understand is that he’s particularly popular among young men – the demographic we’re constantly told doesn’t read books.” This is all the more surprising, since Dazai’s novels are not traditional bestseller material. They are depressing, nihilistic and filled with the self-hatred of their narrators.
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No Longer Human consists of a series of notebooks by a former “handsome young man” who declares his incompatibility with the human race. For him, the world is “a place of unfathomable fear”; He concluded that “living itself is the source of sin”. The narrator of the title story Schoolgirl has a similar view: “The problem is that I’m corrupt. I’m a bad girl.”
The persistent pessimism in Dazai’s work runs the risk of seeming overwhelming or indulgent, but, as Barton says, Dazai “leans in (to self-loathing) with a kind of gusto”. Indeed, his appeal lies in part in this “shameless emotional quality as well as fierce intelligence”.
Tynan Cagney, editor-in-chief of New York-based New Directions, agrees. “I think a lot of young readers see themselves in Dazai’s works.” He adds that “There’s a lot of nihilism and despair in Dazai’s work, and that’s unfortunate for our country at this time, but (there’s) a lot of nihilism and despair here too. The Sad Man in Postwar Japan really connected with a lot of readers.”
Dazai’s popularity among young readers has spread online – on Reddit and TikTok, where commentators praise him as the only person who understands me.” But his renaissance also has unexpected roots in the 2016 Japanese anime TV series Bungo Stray Dogs, which features fictional versions of real authors as central characters.
New Directions editor Chris Waite says this quirky series, featuring a “delicious” version of Osamu Dazai, has been a boon for book sales. Shortly after the TV series was released in the US in 2018, New Directions saw an increase in sales of Dazai’s books.
“Before we were selling dozens or hundreds of copies (a year),” says Cogne. As Bungo Stray Dogs fever grew, Dazai’s sales increased rapidly. “At its peak,” says Waite, “the annual figure was something like 150,000 copies, which is very rare for us.” Is it true that the sales of No Longer Human bought New Directions a new office floor? “Yes,” replies Wait. “And our previous carpeting was in desperate need of an update.”
But the appeal of Dazai’s work goes far beyond this cartoon cameo. His books have both style and substance. “There’s a natural affability to his storytelling,” says Waite, “that conversation makes you want to read on, no matter what he’s talking about.”
Beyond the heartfelt despair of No Longer Human, novels like The Flowers of Buffoonery (1935) and The Beggar Student (1940) are often playful and witty; Self-referential and self-mocking. “Why do I bother writing novels?” asks the narrator of the beggar student. “Am I attracted to the glory of literary celebrity? Or do I just want to write bestsellers and cash big checks? Let me spare you the theatrics. I want both. That’s too bad.”
Similarly, Schoolgirl, with its exclusively female perspective, presents a different side of Dazai. The authenticity of the voice may be partly because the title story, as Barton told me, was “largely based on the diary of a real 19-year-old schoolgirl that Dazai sent in the post”.
But Dazai’s most famous book is inextricably linked to his own life – and death. In No Longer Human, the narrator has survived a suicide pact in which his girlfriend died. Shortly after finishing the book, Dazai completes his suicide pact with his boyfriend Tommy Yamazaki. Their bodies were recovered six days later, on their 39th birthday. But his work – now more than ever – lives on.
Osamu Dazai’s Schoolgirl, translated by Polly Barton, published by Penguin Classics. To order a copy go here guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
