No Longer Human

by Osamu Dazai

Paperback, 176 pages

English language

Published June 28, 1973 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

ISBN:: 978-0-8112-0481-1

(30 reviews)

Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world … suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, … but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

7 editions

Jim Brown reviewed No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

Alienation from "humans"

No rating

The character in this book sees himself as disconnected from "human beings," alienated an unable to connect. Today, we might call him someone "on the spectrum." But perhaps not, given that this was published in 1948, soon after the bomb. The rumination on "human beings" felts similar to Holden Caufield at certain points (though, much less whiny!)

This book got me thinking a lot about how recent interest in the nonhuman might be related to alienation and capitalism. This is just a half-formed thought and probably not very interesting (and maybe obvious to others), but I'm noting it here just to record it.