The history of modern fiction in Japan is inextricably tied to the "I-novel," an autobiographical, often confessional genre that developed early in the twentieth century as both an extension of the traditional Japanese preference for lyrical narratives and a native reinterpretation of Western naturalism. Of the many authors who produced I-novels of various sorts, perhaps the one whose work is most closely identified with the capacity of this genre for expressing personal pain, and whose chaotic life was that of a writer who struggles to define himself through his work, was Kasai Zenz. The self-portrait that Kasai provides in his stories is of an artist apparently bent on self-destruction through dissipation, yet one who uses literature to give voice, and thereby significance, to his torment. His life of anguish and self-loathing helped to forge the image that modern Japanese readers have of the novelist.

Kasai Zenz was born...