![]() ![]() ![]() No Longer Human is told in the form of notebooks left by one Ōba Yōzō ( 大庭葉蔵), a troubled man incapable of revealing his true self to others, and who, instead, maintains a facade of hollow jocularity. Many believe the book to have been his will, as Dazai killed himself shortly after the last part of the book (which had appeared in serial form) was published.Īs of January 1, 2019, the book is in the public domain. Much like the protagonist Yōzō, Dazai attempted suicide a total of five times in his lifetime, with consorts, until ultimately succeeding in taking his own life with his lover at the time, a woman named Tomie Yamazaki. The novel presents recurring themes in the author's life, including suicide, social alienation, and depression. The novel, narrated in first person, contains several elements which portray an autobiographical basis but is in fact categorized under the semi-autobiographical genre since the characters in the book are all fictional. ![]() The literal translation of the title, noted by Donald Keene in his preface to the English translation, is "Disqualified as a Human Being". It is considered Dazai's masterpiece and ranks as the second-best selling novel ever in Japan, behind Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro. No Longer Human ( 人間失格, Ningen Shikkaku) is a 1948 Japanese novel by Osamu Dazai. ![]()
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