Now in a beautiful gift cloth edition, a masterpiece of postwar Japanese literature.**This powerful novel of a nation in social and moral crisis was first published by New Directions in 1956.

Now in a beautiful gift cloth edition, a masterpiece of postwar Japanese literature.**This powerful novel of a nation in social and moral crisis was first published by New Directions in 1956.

Set in the early postwar years,** The Setting Sunprobes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. The influence ofOsamu Dazai** ’s novel 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.