Reading Order
No Longer HumanDazai No Longer Human Reading Order
Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human (1948) is one of the most widely read novels in Japan and one of the most disturbing confessional novels in world literature — the fictional memoir of Yōzō Ōba, a man who has spent his life performing the role of human being without any genuine understanding of or identification with the people around him. Written in the final year of Dazai's life before his suicide in 1948, and widely understood as autobiographical, the novel is a sustained portrait of self-alienation, alcoholism, and the inability to form human connections that has been described as the definitive Japanese expression of existential alienation.
Where to start
No Longer Human
Complete No Longer Human Book List
- 1Buy
No Longer Human
Osamu Dazai·1948·Dazai's masterpiece and his final complete novel — Yōzō's confessional memoir; published in the year of his suicide and widely regarded as autobiographical; the most important Japanese confessional novel - 2Buy
The Setting Sun
Osamu Dazai·1947·The companion novel — the decline of an aristocratic Japanese family in postwar Japan; slightly lighter in tone than No Longer Human but addressing the same themes of dissolution and the impossibility of belonging to the new postwar world - 3Buy
Run, Melos!
Osamu Dazai·1940·A short story collection containing Dazai's most celebrated shorter fiction — organized around the question of human trust and friendship; the best introduction to his short fiction and a useful counterpoint to the self-destructive vision of No Longer Human
No Longer Human — Frequently Asked Questions
Is No Longer Human autobiographical?
Dazai wrote No Longer Human in 1948, weeks before his final suicide (he had attempted suicide several times previously), and the novel is widely understood as autobiographical. The narrator Yōzō's experiences — his childhood performance of humor to conceal his alienation, his alcoholism, his dependent relationships with women, his drug addiction, his treatment in a psychiatric hospital — all closely parallel Dazai's own life. The novel is not a literal autobiography but a fictional transformation of his own experience.
What order should I read Osamu Dazai in?
Start with No Longer Human for the masterpiece, or The Setting Sun for a slightly less harrowing introduction. Run, Melos! gives the short fiction. Many readers find No Longer Human overwhelming on first encounter and appreciate having read something else by Dazai first, but it can also be read as the entry point.
What is No Longer Human about?
No Longer Human is the fictional memoir of Yōzō Ōba, introduced by an unnamed narrator who has found three of his notebooks. The notebooks describe Yōzō's childhood performance of humor to conceal his sense of not understanding human beings, his adolescence and early adulthood of alcoholism and sexual dependency, his marriage to a woman whose innocence he cannot protect, his drug addiction, and his final institutionalization. The novel is organized around Yōzō's fundamental inability to feel that he is genuinely human.
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