Ihara Saikaku
A number of the stories which Dazai published during World War II were retellings of stories by Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693). His wartime works included "Udaijin Sanetomo" (Minister of the Right Sanetomo, 1943), "Tsugaru" (1944), "Pandora no hako" (Pandora's Box, 1945–46), and "Otogizōshi" (Fairy Tales, 1945) in which he retold a number of old Japanese fairy tales with "vividness and wit."