Retrograde

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 first-time and 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 beautifu