Recipient of the 2018 William F. Sibley Memorial Subvention Award for Japanese Translation A new, definitive translation of the postwar classic known to the west as No Longer Human—a tortured vision inspiring the likes of Junji Ito and Bungo Stray Dogs 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