Dazai Osamu is perhaps one of the most tragic figures in Japanese literature of the 20th century. It is difficult to attribute it to a specific literary movement. Many call him a classic of the “novel about himself” (“watakushi-sesetsu”), others talk about his closeness to romanticism, but despite the fact that both are undoubtedly present in his work, Dazai Osamu’s prose is difficult to fit into the narrow framework of one genre. Most of the works included in the book have not been translated into Russian before.