Osamu Dazai's Posthumous Rise: From Obscurity to Bestseller

Osamu Dazai, the Japanese author who died by suicide in 1948 at age 38, has seen a dramatic revival in book sales, particularly in the UK. His novel 'No Longer Human' has sold over 75,000 copies in the UK alone. Penguin Classics has released the first UK edition of his work in nearly 70 years, a collection of short stories titled 'Schoolgirl', translated by Polly Barton. Dazai's resurgence is partly attributed to the 2016 anime series 'Bungo Stray Dogs', which features a fictionalized version of him. New Directions, the US publisher, reported that Dazai's sales soared to around 150,000 copies annually at the peak of the anime's popularity, funding a new office floor. Dazai is considered one of the 'big three' fathers of modern Japanese literature alongside Yukio Mishima and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. His works, known for their bleakness and self-loathing, resonate with a new generation of young readers, particularly young men, who engage with his content on platforms like Reddit and TikTok. The article highlights Dazai's unique blend of despair and humor, as seen in novellas like 'The Flowers of Buffoonery' and 'The Beggar Student'.