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Ango Sakaguchi (坂口 安吾, Sakaguchi Ango; 20 October 1906 – 17 February 1955) was a Japanese writer, who wrote short stories and novels and was an essayist. His real name was Heigo Sakaguchi (坂口 炳五, Sakaguchi Heigo).
Born in Niigata, Sakaguchi was part of a group of young Japanese writers to rise and prominence in the years immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II. Ango Sakaguchi was associated with the Buraiha or "Decadent School" (無頼派 buraiha, the school of irresponsibility and decadence), 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, "Darakuron" ("Discourse on Decadence"), which examined the role of bushido during the war.[1] It is widely argued that he saw postwar Japan as decadent, yet more truthful than a wartime Japan built on illusions like bushido. (The work itself does not make any claims about the meaning of decadence.)
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.[2]
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 attended Toyo University to study Indian philosophy, graduating at the age of 25. Throughout his career as a student, Ango was very outspoken about 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. At 27, he met and became friends with Yada Tsuneko. 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 ("The Non-serial Murder Incident", translated and published in French as Meurtres sans série), for which he received the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1948. Ango had a child at 42 with his wife, Michiyo Kaji. Ango later died from a brain aneurysm at age 48 in 1955, in Kiryū, Gunma.
For more on Sakaguchi's role in postwar Japan, see John Dower's book Embracing Defeat, pp. 155–157.
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