Shōwa

  • Dazai’s School Notebooks

    Dazai Osamu attended Hirosaki High School from 1927 until 1930, and many of his school notebooks from this period, complete with the inky doodles of a bored schoolboy, are currently being held in various University and Museum archives. Three of them have made their way online and have been preserved by Yobanashi Café over on…

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  • Kuronbo

    Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the fourth and final part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye. This story contains an historic depiction of a black minstrel show and frequent references to blackface. Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html The black girl was in a cage. It was about three metres wide, with…

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  • The Duel

    Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the third part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye. Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html I was not trying to imitate a foreign style duel. I literally just wanted to kill him, and my motive for doing so was quite superficial. It wasn’t like he was exactly…

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  • Japanese in Three Weeks by S. Sheba

    A digitisation of the 1935, revised 30th edition of Japanese in Three Weeks, available to download via the Internet Archive. A fantastic resource for translators who work with older material, it contains a wealth of contemporary phrases and how they were translated between English and Japanese. Illustrations throughout, including sentence diagramming and red text for…

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  • The Thief

    Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the second part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye. First published on Asymptote. Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html There was no doubt that I’d failed the year, but I was still going to take the exam. The beauty of a worthless effort. I was fascinated by…

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