A Drifting Life: The Epic Autobiography Of A Manga Master

Winner of the 2010 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.

Edited and designed by Adrian Tomine.

Acclaimed for his visionary short-story collections The Push Man and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and Good-Bye—originally created nearly forty years ago, but just as resonant now as ever—the legendary Japanese cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has come to be recognized in North America as a precursor of today’s graphic novel movement. A Drifting Life is his monumental memoir eleven years in the making, beginning with his experiences as a child in Osaka, growing up as part of a country burdened by the shadows of World War II.

Spanning fifteen years from August of 1945 to June of 1960, Tatsumi’s stand-in protagonist, Hiroshi, faces his father’s financial burdens and his parents’ failing marriage, his jealous brother’s deteriorating health, and the innumerable pitfalls that await him in the competitive manga market of mid-twentieth-century Japan. He dreams of following in the considerable footsteps of his idol, manga artist Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Apollo’s Song, Ode to Kirihito, Buddha)—with whom Tatsumi eventually became peers and, at times, stylistic rivals.

Praise for Yoshihiro Tatsumi:
“In the hands of a talent like Tatsumi…hidden worlds are excavated and dark corners of the human condition illuminated.”—Bookforum

“His nakedly personal work, created when the medium was predominantly impersonal, made Tatsumi unique in Japan and around the world.”—Print