No longer a human

Author: Osamu Dazai Book classification: Short story and novel Publication date: 2024 Book format: Paperback Publisher: Dar Kitab for Publishing Number of pages: 220 Summary: He is no longer human. It is not only Osamu Dazai's most remarkable work, but also the second best-selling novel in Japan so far, and a semi-autobiography of the author published for the first time in 1948. It is a deep, painful, very human, and truthful novel, a pure depiction of the life, thoughts, feelings, and human anxieties of a young man named Ooba Yuzo who considered himself socially rejected since childhood, unable to understand others or communicate with them. He made humor a method to hide his fears and psychological crises until he reached adulthood, became addicted to alcohol, and lived with a deadly indifference that led him to two suicide attempts and caused suffering to himself and those around him. Although this novel tells about a person rejected by society and rejected from it until he lost his humanity, we find it an incredibly human work, and even if it is dark and painful, that is because it tears apart the veil of illusions we deceive ourselves with so as not to acknowledge the corruption lurking deep within reality and society.