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  • The Setting Sun

  • New Directions Book
  • By: Osamu Dazai
  • Narrated by: June Angela
  • Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)
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The Setting Sun cover art

The Setting Sun

By: Osamu Dazai
Narrated by: June Angela
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Summary

This powerful novel of a nation in social and moral crisis was first published by New Directions in 1956 - and now, for the first time, is available in audio, with the spellbinding narration of June Angela.

Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book 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.

©1956 New Directions Publishing Corp. (P)2020 New Directions Publishing Corp.

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Fantastic Narration. Worth the listen

A poignant tale of post-war catastrophic effects on human psyche when Japan transitioned from feudal society to an industrial one. This book charts the heartbreaking fall of Kazuko's family from high class aristocracy to poverty, sickness and loneliness. Dazai's prose is like a slow burning pain that gradually eats away your heart. Beautiful sad book with fantastic narration that makes the story even more heartbreaking.

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