The Truth Seen Beyond the Fall: A Portrait of Ango Sakaguchi and Postwar Literature (1906-1955)

The Truth Seen Beyond the Fall: A Portrait of Ango Sakaguchi and Postwar Literature (1906-1955)

In the midst of the chaos and nihilism of postwar Japan, Ango Sakaguchi emerged with a single idea. The paradox that people are fallible. This is symbolized by his eponymous "theory of depravity. His rejection of hypocrisy and pretense, and his affirmation of human weakness and desire, was an almost redeeming thought for the people of the time, who were wandering among the ruins of morality. Ango was born in Niigata, studied philosophy at Waseda University, and developed his own style of writing while devoting himself to decadent literature. After the defeat in World War II, he exposed the essence of human nature and depicted the depths of the human psyche behind the stories through his fantastic and violent works such as "Hakuchi" (White Devil), "Under the Cherry Blossoms in Full Blossom" and "Yonagahime to Mimi Otoko (Princess Night and the Ear Man). In "War and a Woman," he depicted the moral decay of the postwar era as it was, with its odor of sex, violence, and death in
the air. His literature, which he wrote prematurely at the age of 48, continues to ask the questions: Why do people fall? Why do people fall, and what do they see beyond their fall? Ango Sakaguchi continued to gaze at the essence of the "fall" of life until the end of his life.