The Setting Sun cover art

The Setting Sun

New Directions Book

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Setting Sun

By: Osamu Dazai
Narrated by: June Angela
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

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. Classics Fiction Historical Fiction World Literature Imperial Japan

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Flowers of Buffoonery cover art
The Lady with the Dog & Other Stories (AmazonClassics Edition) cover art
Testimony of Two Men cover art
Kokoro cover art
Mistletoe Malice cover art
The Duel and Other Stories cover art
The Dream cover art
I Am a Cat cover art
Sanshiro cover art
The Kreutzer Sonata cover art
The Crowded Street cover art
Rogue Herries cover art
Where Angels Fear to Tread cover art
Shirley cover art
Anna Karenina cover art
Zeno's Conscience cover art
All stars
Most relevant
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.

Fantastic Narration. Worth the listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.