No Longer Human – Osamu Dazai

Description

No Longer Human is the story of Yozo Oba, who, from early childhood, finds it impossible to form meaningful relationships with family or friends. As a child he copes by acting the fool—mocking himself while entertaining others. As an adult he turns to alcohol, sex and drugs, which lead to his eventual self-destruction.

Originally written in 1948 and based closely on Dazai’s own life, the timeless and universal themes of social alienation, failure and one man’s inner torture at his inability to feel like a normal human still resonate with young people everywhere, making this an enduring international classic.

This contemporary translation will be welcomed by all fans of modern Japanese literature as well as by readers familiar with Osamu Dazai. After Soseki Natsume, Osamu Dazai is Japan’s most popular writer. Dazai is enjoying a surge in interest among young people today thanks to the success of the manga, anime and film series Bungo Stray Dogs, whose protagonist, a detective named Osamu Dazai, is based on the real-life author.

“Dazai’s brand of egoistic pessimism dovetails organically with the emo chic of this cultural moment and with the inner lives of teenagers of all eras.” —Andrew Martin, The New York Times


About the Author:
Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was the pen name of Shuji Tsushima, the tenth of eleven children born to a wealthy landowner and politician in the far north of Japan. Dazai studied French literature at the University of Tokyo, but never received a degree. He first attracted attention in 1933 when magazines began to publish his work. Between 1930 and 1937, he made three suicide attempts, a subject he deals with in many of his short stories. Despite his troubled life and rebellious spirit, Dazai wrote in simple and colloquial style, conveying his personal torments through literature. Dazai’s life ended early in a double suicide with a married lover.

Juliet Winters Carpenter is an award-winning American translator of modern Japanese fiction. Born in Ann Arbor, Carpenter studied Japanese at the University of Michigan and the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. She is Professor Emeritas at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto. Her work has won numerous awards, including the Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 1980 and 2014-2015. In 2022 she was awarded the Lindsay and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize for a lifetime of achievement as a translator of modern Japanese literature. She and her husband live on Whidbey Island in Washington State with two of their sons and their dog, Winter.