Retrogression

by Osamu Dazai, A.L. Raye (Translator)

"Major credit must go to A. L. Raye for rendering Dazai’s Japanese in a vivid, sparking English."
- Asymptote Journal

“I’ll stab him! I thought. What an absolute scoundrel!” So Dazai wrote to Yasunari Kawabata, one of the judges for the first Akutagawa Prize, when his story Retrogression failed to win. Thus began what came to be known as the Akutagawa Prize Incident, which culminated in Dazai being forcibly hospitalised by one of the judges.

A collection of intertwined autobiographical tales from the author’s life, Retrogression starts with the protagonist’s death as an ‘old man’ of twenty-five and regresses back through a life of sin and decadence.This book pieces together the fractured and disorderly lifestyle of one of history’s greatest romantics and pairs it with a particular moment in his life; losing the Akutagawa Prize. The ensuing drama that unfolded through private letters, newspaper articles, diaries, obituaries and fiction created a scandal that disturbed the early Shōwa literati with its coarse and indecent honesty. Dazai’s fiction, fiction written about Dazai, speculation and reality intertwined to create an explosive event that not only changed the desired trajectory of his life but also raised issues of discrimination within prominent literary circles and the treatment of mental illness in 1930s Japan.


Retrogression
Diary of My Distress
Human Lost
Various letters written both to and from Dazai
Two articles written about Dazai by his mentor, Satō Haruo
Excerpts from the Akutagawa Prize selection committee
...As well as extensive cultural notes and annotations.

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Osamu Dazai was born in Aomori prefecture, Japan, in 1909. After dropping out of Tokyo Imperial University and eloping with a geisha, Oyama Hatsuyo, he was disowned by his family. Having been accustomed to a generous stipend as a student (a monthly payment of 150 yen, the same as the salary of one of his professors), his newly reduced income drove him into a crisis. He attempted a double suicide with his lover Shimeko Tanabe. She died, he survived, and just a few years later he wrote 'Retrogression', a short collection of four intertwining stories. Autobiographical in nature, it gives us a glimpse into his life until that point. Infamously, he submitted 'Retrogression' for the first Akutagawa Prize and lost, subsequently sending the judges – including the Nobel prize-winning Yasunari Kawabata – several letters begging for both the award and for money.

A. L. Raye is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and Editor of the bilingual Welsh and English literary magazine Gwyllion. They run Yobanashi Café, an open access translation project creating English translations of public domain Japanese classics under a Creative Commons licence. They obtained an MPhil in Classical Indian Religion from the University of Oxford.

Genres: Japan

98 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2024

About the author

Osamu DAZAI (native name: 太宰治, real name Shūji Tsushima) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō (The Setting Sun) and Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), are considered modern-day classics in Japan.
With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He was not an old man. He was only around 25 years old, but at the same time he was, undoubtedly, an old man. For every year that a normal person lived, this old man lived it three times over."
- Dazai Osamu, "Retrogression"

Dazai Osamu is one of the most popular and well known Japanese authors. But before Dazai Osamu was the literary master who wrote No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, he was a budding author trying to make a name for himself. While battling drug addiction, mental illness, and spending time in a mental hospital, a young Dazai was also trying desperately to write a piece of fiction worthy of winning the Akutagawa Prize. This book is a collection of short stories, articles, letters, and eulogies that shed light on this period of Dazai's life and writing career. The Introduction, background information, and annotations by the translator, A. L. Raye, add a great deal of user friendly insight and made the book even more enjoyable to read! An impressive amount of time and research must have gone into it.

While the young Dazai Osamu was not as experienced as he would be later in his career, the stories in Retrogression show that he had an innate talent for writing. "Retrogression" and "Human Lost," both of which are available in English for the first time, in particular stand out but for different reasons. "Retrogression" is a well constructed short story that showed Dazai's skill as an author. "Human Lost," an autobiographical short story about his experience as a patient at a mental hospital, has the humor, fragility, depth, and rawness that Dazai became known for. It is somewhat ironic that he viewed himself as being disqualified as a human, because everything he wrote has a mirror-like quality where readers can see themselves within the words. It's seems crazy, especially considering that Dazai was writing four meter long letters complaining about not winning the prize, finding a live snake in his mailbox, writing on the walls of his room in a mental hospital, getting into a fight over stealing a guy's whiskey, and throwing rocks at Satō Haruo's roof. As Satō says, in the article included in this collection, "[Dazai] has the kind of romantic spirit of a selfish, good-for-nothing wastrel, but more than that, he has let this seep deep down into the very marrow of his being. The uninhibited yet fragile self flows out of control, and it is the lot in life of this particular variety of man to continually contemplate himself until his self-awareness becomes intertwined with his bones."

Dazai's stories by themselves are interesting and thought provoking, but what really makes them shine is how the translator included articles, letters, and other relevant texts that gave more background about the people involved and what Dazai was going through at that time in his life.
It added a tension and a sense of drama that would not be possible otherwise. You could go read essays about the Akutagawa Prize incident and biographies about the authors involved, but that would feel like research. Retrogression was able to bring history to life in a much more exciting way.

"This book aims to piece together the fractured and disorderly lifestyle of one of history's greatest romantics and pairs it with a particular moment in his life; losing the Akutagawa Prize. The ensuing drama that unfolded through private letters, newspaper articles, diaries, obituaries, and fiction created a scandal that disturbed the early Showa literati with its coarse and indecent honesty. Dazai's fiction, fiction about Dazai, speculation and reality intertwined to create an explosive event that not only changed the desired trajectory of his life but also raised issues of discrimination within prominent literary circles and the treatment of mental illness in 1930s Japan."
- From the Introduction by translator A. L. Raye

[Ada · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Dazai doesn’t disappoint. I loved everything about this book, especially “Human Lost” and “The Thief” (even though I truly loved it all from start to finish!)
Definitely one of my favourite authors, Dazai I love you

[Suzume · Rating 4 out of 5]

...
It was really fascinating to get the (more or less) full story about 'the Akutagawa Prize incident' and not just 'Dazai wanted to win, because Akutagawa was his idol, and when he didn't, he was angry and upset and wanted to stab Kawabata'.
...

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCzd9xQIi2P/

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Retrogression provided a fascinating insight into the impact that the Akutagawa Prize had on the life of Dazai Osamu. The translations of his correspondence with others during this devastating time of his life convey the thoughts and emotions of Dazai Osamu and those who wrote responses to his letters. I really enjoyed reading this book and I appreciated being able to see the progression of unfortunate circumstances surrounding Dazai Osamu during the Akutagawa Prize seasons.

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retrogression comes from the word retrograde and means to regress or go back. The word is harsh in its inflexibility to allow other interpretations. It does not allow for softer words such as return or loop back. Nor does it allow the tragic tone to enter with words such as crumble or degrade in the hopes of conjuring some emotion from the reader. Retrograde is unmistakable in its definition. It is a reduction; a lowering of worth from a desired or once held ideal. And for Osamu Dazai, it was probably his state of being for a significant period of his life.

Retrogression is a collection of material surrounding the topic of the Akutagawa prize Dazai desperately sought but never obtained. The book contains some of Dazai’s writing, newspaper articles, interviews, journal entries, and historical contexts gathered and translated by A.L. Raye. The end result is a culmination of material that focuses on an intense period in Dazai’s life where he dealt with his failing academics, his addictions, his attempts to become and author, his need to win the Akutagawa prize, and his desperation to maintain control over his unraveling life.

Review Continued Here