Description:
Three stories of the ruined and the lost: Osamu Dazai at his most tormented. This collection unearths the Japanese literary legend's 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.
Brief description: 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 use of language, and his multiple suicide attempts, which led to his final, successful attempt in 1948. His two major novels, No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, continue to be widely read and leave a vibrant legacy for one of Japan's greatest writers.
Review Quotes: "Dazai's writing is concise, and the evocative despair cuts like an X-Acto knife. The expressed sentiments are also universal enough that when Dazai is quoted out of context, his sentences read like depressive bromides." -Dirt