⚠️I AM NOT THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR⚠️ Mine life has been a life of such shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. 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, Osamu Dazai (1904-1947). The novel has become to "echo the sentiments of youth" (Hiroshi Ando, The Mainichi Daily News) from post-war Japan to the postmodern society of technology. Still one of the ten best selling books in Japan, "No Longer Human" is a powerful exploration of an individual's alienation from society. "A stark but powerful novel of modern Japan focuses on one unhappy young symbol of a dejected generation" -Booklist "No Longer Human presents us with the figure of a man who carries misery and weakness and love, like a lepers bell, through the world, the figure of our merely human selves." -The New York Times
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