***Crackling Mountain and Other Stories* features eleven outstanding works by Osama Dazai, widely regarded as one of the 20th century Japan’s most gifted writers.** Dazai experimented with a wide variety of short story styles and brought to each a sophisticated sense of humor, a broad empathy for the human condition, and a tremendous literary talent. The eleven stories in this collection of Japanese literature present the most fully rounded portrait available of a tragic, multifaceted genius of modern Japanese letters.