Ango Sakaguchi – On Decadence

Starting today I will begin to translate Ango Sakaguchi’s essay On Decadence.

Ango Sakaguchi was a Japanese author and intellectual. He was born in Nigata Prefecture in 1906 and died in Gunma in 1955. His essay On Decadence was published in April 1946, and immediately placed him at the forefront of post-war authors and thinkers. He was considered to be a member of the intellectual community of writers called Buraiha, or the decadent school. As a member of this school Sakaguchi stressed the importance of fictional elements in literature.

Even though On Decadence is considered a important post-war Japanese text, it has not been published in translation as far as I know. Several free translations can be found online.

My goal is to translate 400 Japanese characters per day, that’s roughly one page of Japanese text. I will provide notes where needed. These will mostly be taken either from footnotes provided in the Japanese text that I am using or when available from online resources in English.