Tsugaru

Osamu Dazai / 李晓旭Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaOct 2023

Rating 4.1
Word count
83K words
Chapters
9
ISBN
9787559410917

Tags

Foreign Literature Human GeographySpiritual ComfortSlow ReadingHeartwarming NarrativeDocumentary NarrativeSelf-ReflectionFolk Customs

Summary

This is an autobiographical essay collection by the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai. Tsugaru is Dazai's hometown, located at the northern tip of Japan's Honshu Island, where he spent the first half of his life; its people and scenery became a bond he carried ever after.

In 1944, Dazai—who had attempted suicide several times—returned to his hometown at someone's request to write a topographical account of it. There he temporarily set aside the sorrows he could not dispel, spending about three weeks traveling the Tsugaru Peninsula in search of remembered landscapes, foods, and old acquaintances he worried about but had lost touch with.

This journey is a search for roots and also a farewell, yet Dazai, contrary to his usual manner, recounts its amusing episodes in a humorous tone and, with rare tenderness, depicts this, the only bright place in his life, encouraging readers: press on, do not despair.

Editor's review

Tsugaru is a unique and warm work in Osamu Dazai's career, sharply different from his later fiction steeped in decadence and self-destruction. Written in 1944, near the end of the Pacific War, it arose when a magazine commissioned Dazai to return to his native Tsugaru and write a travel account. The book is not a pure travelogue but a profound spiritual homecoming. With delicate strokes Dazai depicts the land, people, and history of Tsugaru; within seemingly plain narration he interweaves traces of childhood memory, complex feelings about family ties, and a search for the roots of his own existence. Between the lines we rarely see Dazai shed the guise of the "decadent school" and reveal a sincere attachment and tenderness toward his native soil. This tenderness, like the mist over the Tsugaru Strait, is both hazy and deep, and forms an indispensable part of understanding Dazai the man and his writing. It shows, beneath the ground tone of despair and alienation, the writer's deep inner longing for "connection" and "belonging." To read Tsugaru is to follow a sensitive soul in rediscovering how a land shapes a person, and how a person in turn reshapes a land's eternal memory through words.

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Reading tips

  1. Read in a relatively quiet, undisturbed period so as to immerse yourself in the gentle atmosphere and geographical detail the writing creates
  2. Try reading alongside a map or images of the Tsugaru region to better follow the author's footsteps and enhance immersion
  3. After finishing, if interested, read Dazai's better-known fiction (such as No Longer Human) for comparison, gaining a more three-dimensional understanding of his literary personality

About the publisher

Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1958

Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House focuses on literary publishing while also covering the humanities, social sciences, and books on art and daily life. Its approximately 1,535 titles in the database span social novels, world history, design, science fiction, classic works, and film and television: they include modern Chinese literary classics by Lu Xun such as A Madman's Diary: The Complete Short Stories of Lu Xun, Call to Arms, Four Generations Under One Roof, and Teahouse, as well as foreign literary memoirs like Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday. In science fiction it offers Asimov's Galactic Empire series, while in architecture and art it publishes Liu Dunzhen's Classical Gardens of Suzhou and design titles from Phoenix Space. Its authors are concentrated among classic writers such as Lu Xun, Zweig, and Asimov, with translators including Liang Xijiang, Zhong Haonan, and Ye Lihua. Its overall character is built on classic works while embracing genre fiction and visual culture. Public information is limited, and this introduction is based on the titles in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 序篇
  3. 巡礼
  4. 蟹田
  5. 外滨
  6. 津轻平野
  7. 西海岸
  8. 译后记
  9. 附录

FAQ

What is the place of Tsugaru in Dazai's work? Tsugaru is a representative non-fiction work from Dazai's middle period and is often seen as an "anomaly" in his oeuvre. It shows the writer's rare brightness, nostalgia, and deep affection for his homeland, and is a key text for understanding the complexity and diversity of his inner world, forming a sharp contrast with the despair of his fiction.
Is this book a pure travelogue? Not a pure travelogue. It blends travel observations, local lore, personal memoir, and emotional reflection. The outward travel route is the thread; the core is the author's spiritual journey of tracing his roots, with emotion and reflection weighing more than objective description.
Will unfamiliarity with Japanese geography affect reading? Not much. The author's depiction of the Tsugaru region (western Aomori Prefecture) is full of detail and emotion; even without knowing specific place names, readers can feel the distinctive regional atmosphere, the warmth and coldness of human relations, and the abstract meaning of "home." The emotional resonance far exceeds the geographical knowledge itself.

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About the author

Osamu Dazai Author · Japan · 1909–1948

Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) was a Japanese novelist born Tsushima Shūji into a wealthy landowning family in Aomori Prefecture. A leading figure of Japan's "Buraiha" or decadent school, he entered the literary world in the 1930s, and his early work The Setting Sun was shortlisted for the first Akutagawa Prize. In the postwar years he produced his most important writing, including The Setting Sun and No Longer Human, works marked by self-mocking confession and a gloomy, sentimental tone that portray outcasts, alienation, and self-destruction. His influence on later Japanese literature is profound. In 1948 he drowned himself with his lover, Yamazaki Tomie, at the age of 38. His fiction centers on self-exile, the disintegration of family, and the spiritual crisis of postwar Japan, and his decadent yet sincere style has earned him a wide readership in the Chinese-speaking world as well.

李晓旭 Author

Li Xiaoxu is an author about whom little public information is available, and whose confirmed works span two rather different fields. The work Tsugaru is classified under foreign literature; its title points to the Tsugaru region in northeastern Japan and is generally associated with regional customs, travel observations, or related literary writing. A History of the Development of Chinese Football, by contrast, belongs to the sports category and focuses on the historical development of football in China. The two works fall under literature and sports respectively, and their marked difference in subject matter shows the author's attention to and attempts at writing in different areas. Because information such as dates of birth and death, nationality, education, and positions is unknown, the author's personal experience and writing background are difficult to outline, and the present introduction can only describe the works at the level of subject matter based on the available records. Readers who wish to learn more about the author's style and influence will need to consult additional public sources.