Born in Niigata, Sakaguchi was one of a group of young Japanese writers to rise to prominence in the years immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II. As such, Ango Sakaguchi was associated with the Buraiha or 'Decadent' School, which designated a group of dissolute writers who expressed their perceived aimlessness and identity crisis of post-World War II Japan. In 1946 he wrote his most famous essay, titled "Darakuron", which examined the role of bushido during the war. It is widely argued that he saw postwar Japan as decadent, yet more truthful than a wartime Japan built on illusions like bushido. Ango was born in 1906 and was the 12th child of 13. He was born in the middle of a Japan perpetually at war. His father was the president of the Niigata Shimbun newspaper, a politician, and a poet. Ango wanted to be a writer at 16. He moved to Tokyo at 17, after hitting a teacher who caught him truanting. His father died from brain cancer the following year, leaving his family in massive debt. At 20, Ango taught for a year as a substitute teacher following secondary school. He became heavily involved in Buddhism and went to University to study Indian philosophy, graduating at the age of 25. Throughout his career as a student, Ango was very vocal in his opinions. He wrote various works of literature after graduating, receiving praise from writers such as Makino Shin’ichi. His literary career started around the same time as Japan's expansion into Manchuria. He met Yada Tsuseko to get very along with, at 27. His mother died when he was 37, in the middle of World War II. He struggled for recognition as a writer for years before finally finding it with “A Personal View of Japanese Culture” in 1942, and again with “On Decadence” in 1946. In 1947, Ango Sakaguchi wrote an ironical murder mystery, 'Furenzoku satsujin jiken', for which he received in 1948 the Mystery Writers of Japan Award. Ango had a child at 48 with his wife, Michiyo Kaji. He died from a brain aneurysm at age 48 in 1955, in Kiryū, Gunma.
Works in English translation
Literary Mischief: Sakaguchi Ango, Culture, and the War, edited by James Dorsey and Doug Slaymaker, with translations by James Dorsey. Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2010.
*Short story
**"Pearls"
*Essays
**"A Personal View of Japanese Culture"
**"Discourse on Decadence"
**"Discourse on Decadence, Part II"
;Short stories
Wind, Light, and the Twenty-Year-Old-Me , translated by Reiko Seri and Doc Kane. Kobe, Japan, , 2020.
"The Idiot" . Transl. by George Saitô in Modern Japanese Stories, ed. by Ivan Morris. Rutland and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1962, 383-410.
"One Woman and the War" . Transl. by Lane Dunlop in Autumn Wind and Other Stories. Rutland and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1994, 140-160.
"The War and a Woman" . Transl. by Robert Zetzsche in Sakiko Nomura: Ango. Match and Company, 2017
"A Personal View of Japanese Culture" . Transl. by James Dorsey in Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, ed. by Thomas Rimer and Van Gessel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, pp. 823–835.
