Retrograde [TRADE PAPER ]

Three stories of the ruined and the lost: Osamu Dazai at his most tormented. This collection unearths the Japanese literary legends most controversial and exhilarating early-career writing with strikingly original translations. Retrograde traces the life of an anguished youth in reverse; Das Gemeine features an aspiring literato with a dark past who hitches his wagon to an eccentric violinist; Blossom-Leaves and the Spirit Whistle tells of an old woman recalling the final breaths of her beautiful, sickly sister. Experience the twisted agony of the prose that propelled Dazai to the top of the literary world.

Osamu Dazai (1909— 1948) is one of the most highly respected author's of modern Japan and is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in post-war Japanese literature. He was widely known by contemporaries for his eclectic lifestyle, inventive u