A Shameful Life: (Ningen Shikkaku)

by Mark Gibeau (Translator), Osamu Dazai (Author)

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Osamu Dazai is one of the most famous--and infamous--writers of 20th-century Japan. A Shameful Life (Ningen shikkaku) is his final published work and has become a bestselling classic for its depiction of the tortured struggle of a young man to survive in a world that he cannot comprehend. Paralleling the life and death of Dazai himself, the delicate weaving of fact and fiction remorselessly documents via journals the life of Yozo, a university student who spends his time in increasing isolation and debauchery. His doomed love affairs, suicide attempts, and constant fear of revealing his true self haunt the pages of the book and reveal a slow descent into madness. This dark tale nevertheless conveys something authentic about the human heart and its inability to find its true bearing.

Synopsis

Osamu Dazai is one of the most famous--and infamous--writers of 20th-century Japan. A Shameful Life (Ningen shikkaku) is his final published work and has become a bestselling classic for its depiction of the tortured struggle of a young man to survive in a world that he cannot comprehend. Paralleling the life and death of Dazai himself, the delicate weaving of fact and fiction remorselessly documents via journals the life of Yozo, a university student who spends his time in increasing isolation and debauchery. His doomed love affairs, suicide attempts, and constant fear of revealing his true self haunt the pages of the book and reveal a slow descent into madness. This dark tale nevertheless conveys something authentic about the human heart and its inability to find its true bearing.

$11.93

Quantity

18 in stock

More Information

Format: paperback
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Published:
ISBN 10: 1611720443
ISBN 13: 9781611720440
Book Overview: Galleys/e-galleys to national media outlets, trade publications, audience-focused websites and reviewers, selected booksellers, literary magazines and bloggers, especially those focusing on works in translation, such as Conversational Reading, Literary Saloon, This Space, Three Percent, Translationista, Center for the Art of Translation, Words without Borders, Translator's Home Companion, and more. Galleys/e-galleys also sent to AV Club, Book Forum, Book Riot, Booklist, BookPage, Choice Book Reviews, Foreword, Library Journal, Lithub, Longitude, Midwest Book Review, Panels, Paste, Portland Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Rain Taxi, San Francisco Book Review, SF Chronicle, Shelf Awareness, The Common Magazine, The Guardian, The LA Review of Books, The New York Journal of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and more. Digital galleys on Edelweiss Special outreach for reviews and interviews with the translator to English-language Japanese media including NHK, The Japan Times, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan Today and more. Spcecial outreach to literature publications and journals such as The American Literary Review, Chicago Review, Lit Hub, New York Journal of Books, The Literary Review, World Literature Review, and more. Academic outreach to Japanese studies and Literature departments. Promotion at Association of Asian Studies, ALA (Postcards and other materials) Giveaways through websites focused on key audiences of Japanese literature and translation. Social media marketing with excerpts from the book on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit and target audience focused forums.

Media Reviews

Winner of the William F. Sibley Memorial Subvention Award for Japanese Translation Dazai's reputation has not waned a bit in seventy years. Reading Mark Gibeau's brilliant translation will show you why. --Roger Pulvers, award-winning translator, film director, and author of LIV

Author Bio

Author Osamu Dazai (1909-48) retains an enormous following today. He is as famous for his darkly introspective novels as for the light-hearted children's stories that are a staple of many Japanese textbooks. His novel Shayo has been published in English as The Setting Sun. Son of a wealthy family in northern Japan, Dazai was a top student who showed an early penchant for literary writing. He led a troubled, unstable life and suffered from drug abuse and alcoholism; he attempted suicide and had numerous affairs, even as his literary fame grew. A Shameful Life is said to be a close approximation of his lifestyle and struggles. The protagonist in the novel survives, but shortly after publication of A Shameful Life, Dazai and his lover drowned themselves in the Tamagawa Canal in western Tokyo. Mark Gibeau is a literary translator and scholar of postwar Japanese literature. His previous translations include fiction by Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichir Tanizaki, Sh gor Yamamoto, Sakumi Tayama, Mitsuyo Kakuta, Saky Komatsu among others. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University, Canberra.