Retrograde
One Peace Books · Paperback · September 16, 2025
Three stories of the ruined and the lost: Osamu Dazai at his most tormented.
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- Who it’s for
- Readers drawn to anguished, tormented literary stories
- Themes
- Anguish, Loss and ruin, Dark pasts
- Genres
- Short Stories (Single Author), Japanese Fiction, Japanese Literary Collections
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
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“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.
Who it’s for
- Readers drawn to anguished, tormented literary stories
- Readers interested in stories of the ruined and lost
Where it sits
| Japanese Fiction | 51% |
|---|---|
| Short Stories (Single Author) | 48% |
| Japanese Literary Collections | 40% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Japanese Fiction
- Japanese Literary Collections
- Authors
- Osamu Dazai
- Publisher
- One Peace Books
- Published
- September 16, 2025
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Anguish · Loss and ruin · Dark pasts
- Reading lane
- Literary Fiction