The latest from the horror manga master, Junji Ito is a 600 page hardcover graphic novel, complete with die cut dust jacket.  It is an adaptation of the cult Japanese novel of the same name, written by Osamu Dazai and originally published in May 1948, a month before he committed suicide (yikes!). 

Out of print for thirty years, Self-Portraits is once again available in this new edition from New Directions, who have this to say abou it:

“Art dies the moment it acquires authority.” So said Japan’s quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nation’s obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his death—and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the world—in all its self-involved, self-conscious, and self-hating glory. “Art,” he wrote, “is ‘I.’”

In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazai’s life mirrored his art, and vice versa, as the writer/narrator falls from grace, rises to fame, and falls again. Addiction, debt, shame, and despair dogged Dazai until his self-inflicted death, and yet despite all the lies and deception he resorted to in life, there is an almost fanatical honesty to his writing. And that has made him a hero to generations of readers who see laid bare, in his works, the painful, impossible contradictions inherent in the universal commandment of social life—fit in and do as you are told—as well as the possibility, however desperate, of defiance. Long out of print, these stories will be a revelation to the legions of new fans of No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, and Flowers of Buffoonery.

softcover | 232 pages | ISBN: 9780811232265

The back cover blurb pretty much says all that you need to know:  "For the first time in English, Osamu Dazai's hilariously comic (!) and deeply moving prequel to No Longer Human."

... but we'll throw these in for good measure:

"What I despise about Dazai is that he exposes precisely those things in myself that I most want to hide." – Yukio Mishima

"Dazai was an aristocratic tramp, a self-described delinquent, yet he wrote with the forbearance of a fasting scribe," – Patti Smith

Perhaps closer to a novella than a novel. 

Opening line: "Welcome to Sadness. Population one."

Here's the latest Osamu Dazai tranaslation from New Directions, who have this to say about it:

Translated from Japanese by Sam Bett

A fictional writer in his thirties named Osamu Dazai has just mailed his publisher an awful manuscript, filling him with dread and shame. Wandering along a river in a nearby park in suburban Tokyo, he meets a high-school dropout and the two get into an intellectual spat. Eventually, Dazai finds himself agreeing to perform in the boy’s place that very night as the live narrator of a film screening…

So begins the madcap adventure of The Beggar Student, where there is glamor in destitution, and intellectual one-upmanship reveals glimmers of truth. Replete with settings incorporated into the popular anime Bungo Stray Dogs and with echoes of No Longer Human, this biting novella captures the infamous Japanese writer at his mordant best.

You can dive right in by checking out this 10-page preview.