Translation of Shay�o.

Originally published in 1947 by Shinchosha in Japan. This English translation first published in 1956.

"This powerful and tragic novel vividly paints life in a nation in social and moral crisis. Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world."--Provided by publisher.