Retrograde

About

Five stories and a novella from Dazai's early career — the raw, Dostoevskian years before No Longer Human made him a legend. The title story tells a life in reverse, starting from death and working backward. "Das Gemeine" follows an aspiring writer entangled with an eccentric violinist. "Blossom-Leaves and the Spirit Whistle" watches an old woman remember her dying sister with terrifying precision. These are first-time English translations of work that lost the Akutagawa Prize and nearly ended Dazai's career — and they burn with the desperate energy of a young writer who hasn't yet learned to disguise his wounds as style. Retrograde is essential Dazai: the self-destruction is already there, but so is the tenderness he could never quite extinguish.