A Drifting Life

The epic autobiography of a manga master Acclaimed for his visionary short-story collections The Push Man and Other Stories Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Good-Byeoriginally created nearly forty years ago but just as resonant now as everthe legendary Japanese cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has come to be recognized in North America as a precursor of todays 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 1945 to June 1960 Tatsumis stand-in protagonist Hiroshi faces his fathers financial burdens and his parents failing marriage his jealous brothers 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 the manga artist Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy Apollos Song Ode to Kirihito Buddha)with whom Tatsumi eventually became a peer and at times a stylistic rival. As with his short-story collection A Drifting Life is designed by Adrian Tomine.