No Longer Human: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
No Longer Human: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
By (Author) Osamu Dazai
Translated by David Boyd
Introduction by David Boyd
Notes by David Boyd
Penguin Putnam Inc
Penguin Classics
26th September 2023
United States
Classifications
Physical Properties
Paperback
192
Width 143mm, Height 214mm, Spine 12mm
225g
Description
A 75th-anniversary edition of the classic Japanese novel of alienation and the search for meaning and connection in the modern world, in its first new English translation in more than sixty years-for fans of Salinger, Camus, Sartre, Hesse, and the hit anime series Bungo Stray Dogs, which features a character based on No Longer Human's author, Osamu Dazai A Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe Edition Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. Oba Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness. Semi-autobiographical, No Longer Human is the final completed work of one of Japan's most important writers. It has come to "echo the sentiments of youth" (The Mainichi Daily News) from post-war Japan to the postmodern society of technology. Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is a powerful exploration of an individual's alienation from society.
Author Bio
Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was one of the most important Japanese novelists of the twentieth century. His many published works include No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, Schoolgirl, and A Shameful Life. Dazai died by suicide at the age of thirty-eight. David Boyd (translation, introduction, notes) has twice won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. He has translated fiction by Mieko Kawakami, Izumi Suzuki, and Hiroko Oyamada, among others. He is an assistant professor of Japanese at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
