Mine has been a life of much 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. His 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. Still one of the
ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is an important and
unforgettable modern classic: "The struggle of the individual to fit
into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at
the time of writing." (The Japan Times)