34 Facts About Osamu Dazai

Shuji Tsushima, known by his pen name Osamu Dazai, was a Japanese novelist and author.

Osamu Dazai's influences include Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Shikibu and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Osamu Dazai was the tenth of the eleven children born to his parents.

Osamu Dazai's father, Gen'emon, was a younger son of the Matsuki family, which, due to "its exceedingly 'feudal' tradition," had no use for sons other than the eldest son and heir.

Osamu Dazai became involved in politics due to his position as one of the four wealthiest landowners in the prefecture, and was offered membership of the House of Peers.

Osamu Dazai developed an interest in Edo culture and began studying gidayu, a form of chanted narration used in bunraku.

Around 1928, Osamu Dazai edited a series of student publications and contributed some of his own works.

Osamu Dazai published a magazine called Saibo Bungei with his friends, and subsequently became a staff member of the college's newspaper.

Osamu Dazai started to neglect his studies, and spent the majority of his allowance on clothes, alcohol, and prostitutes.

Osamu Dazai dabbled in Marxism, which at the time was heavily suppressed by the government.

Nine days after he was expelled from Tokyo Imperial University, Osamu Dazai attempted suicide by drowning off a beach in Kamakura with another woman, a 19-year-old bar hostess named Shimeko Tanabe.

Osamu Dazai was rescued by the crew of a fishing boat, and was charged as an accomplice in Tanabe's death.

Osamu Dazai's allowance was reinstated, and he was released without any charges.

Osamu Dazai hardly participated in the strike, but in imitation of the proletarian literature in vogue at the time, he summarized the incident in a novel called Student Group and read it to Ueda.

In college, Osamu Dazai met activist Eizo Kudo, and made a monthly financial contribution of ten yen to the Japanese Communist Party.

Osamu Dazai was expelled from his family after his marriage to Hatsuyo Oyama in order to prevent any association of his illegal activities with his brother Bunji, who was a politician.

Osamu Dazai managed to obtain the assistance of Masuji Ibuse, an established writer whose connections helped him get his works published and establish his reputation.

Osamu Dazai wrote at a feverish pace and used the pen name "Osamu Dazai" for the first time in a short story called "Ressha", published in 1933.

Osamu Dazai failed to obtain a job at a Tokyo newspaper.

Osamu Dazai finished The Final Years, which was intended to be his farewell to the world, and tried to hang himself on March 19,1935, failing yet again.

Osamu Dazai quickly remarried, this time to a middle school teacher named Michiko Ishihara.

Osamu Dazai's first story, Gyofukuki, is a grim fantasy involving suicide.

Japan widened the Pacific War by attacking the United States in December 1941, but Osamu Dazai was excused from the draft because of his chronic chest problems, as he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Osamu Dazai's house was burned down twice in the American bombing of Tokyo, but his family escaped unscathed and gained a son, Masaki, who was born in 1944.

Osamu Dazai's third child, his daughter Satoko, who later became a writer under the pseudonym Yuko Tsushima, was born in May 1947.

Osamu Dazai depicted a dissolute life in postwar Tokyo in Viyon no Tsuma, depicting the wife of a poet who had abandoned her and her continuing will to live through hardships.

In 1946, Osamu Dazai published a controversial memoir, "Kuno no Nenkan", in which he describes the immediate aftermath of Japan's defeat and seeks to encapsulate how the Japanese felt at the time.

Osamu Dazai reaffirmed his loyalty to the Japanese Emperor, Emperor Hirohito and his son Akihito.

On December 14,1946, a group of writers that included Osamu Dazai was joined by Yukio Mishima for dinner at a restaurant.

The disgust in which I hold Osamu Dazai's literature is in some way ferocious.

Osamu Dazai abandoned his wife and children and moved in with Tomie.

Osamu Dazai began writing his novel No Longer Human at the hot-spring resort in Atami.

Osamu Dazai then moved to Omiya with Tomie and stayed there until mid-May 1948, finishing his novel.

Osamu Dazai's grave is at the temple of Zenrin-ji, in Mitaka, Tokyo.