Novel
The Setting Sun
斜陽
Osamu Dazai · 1947
Opening lines
朝、食堂でスウプを一さじ、すっと吸ってお母さまが、
「あ」
と幽かな叫び声をお挙げになった。
In the morning, in the dining room, Mother lightly sipped a spoonful of soup and cried
“Ah”
in a faint voice.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from aozora.gr.jp
Synopsis
Kazuko, who has returned to the family home after her divorce, lives in Tokyo with her widowed mother; their uncle Wada tells them that they can no longer keep up their station there and must move to a simpler house in Izu, according to an American documentary database. The mother falls gravely ill, then both grow accustomed to the countryside, where Kazuko works in the fields. Naoji, her brother, reported missing in the South Pacific, returns dependent on opium, and Kazuko begins writing to the novelist Uehara, her brother's former mentor.
Context
The novel appeared in the magazine Shinchō from July to October 1947, then in volume form the same year. Kazuko is modelled on the poet Ōta Shizuko, who was close to the author and whose diary served as the basis for the heroine's notes. The title became the very name of the decline of the aristocracy of the time, and the expression “people of the setting sun” spread to designate this dying class. Donald Keene published the English translation in 1956.
Who it is for
A short novel, partly made up of diaries and letters, for those interested in Japan in the immediate postwar years.
Prizes and reception
Translated into French as early as 1961 by Hélène de Sarbois and Gaston Renondeau, then by Didier Chiche in 2017.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.