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 ofThe Beggar Student, where there is glamor in destitution and glimmerings of truth in intellectual one-upmanship. Replete with settings straight out of the popular animeBungo Stray Dogsand echoes of the themes inNo Longer Human, this biting novella captures the infamous Japanese writer at his mordant best.
