Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai was the pen name of Shūji Tsushima, a Japanese writer who lived from 1909 to 1948. His best-known books, The Setting Sun and No Longer Human, are considered modern classics, and the second is his most widely read work outside Japan. Among his other titles are Schoolgirl and Zatracenie, a bleak novel about guilt and despair. His influences included Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Shikibu and Fyodor Dostoevsky.