Schoolgirl

°°° Allison Markin Powell has been awarded grants from English PEN & the NEA, & the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakaami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, & Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders, served as cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee & currently represents the committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees, & she maintains the database Japanese Literature in English. The novella that first propelled Dazai into the literary elite of post-war Japan. Essentially the start of Dazai's career, ***Schoolgirl*** gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against them--a theme that occupied Dazai's life both personally and professionally. This new translation preserves the playful language of the original and offers the reader a new window into the mind of one of the greatest Japanese authors of the 20th century.