It took Yoshihiro Tatsumi 10 years to complete this 800-plus-page graphic memoir, detailing 15 formative years of his life. Channeling the energy he must have felt as a young man first discovering his creative passion, innovative graphic novelist Tatsumi beautifully pens-and-inks the stories of his early efforts, influences, and success. Filled with dates of world historical events (the book starts off with the time and date of Emperor Hirohito's surrender ending World War II) and seminal moments in the history of Tatsumi's art form (the first section is entitled "The Birth of Manga"), A DRIFTING LIFE exemplifies the potential of a memoir to look beyond the author's own interiority. This is an epic work sure to interest manga and gekiga fans, history buffs, and creative types of all stripes who find inspiration in a talented artist's coming-of-age story as he works to expand his own potential and that of his art form.

A monumental memoir twenty years in the making begins with the Japanese cartoonist's experiences as a child growing up in Osaka, in a country burdened by the shadows of World War II, and spans fifteen years from August 1945 to June 1960, during which time his stand-in protagonist, Hiroshi, faces his father's financial burdens and his parents' failing marriage, his jealous brother's deteriorating health, and the pitfalls that await him in the competitive manga market of mid-twentieth-century Japan.

A monumental memoir twenty years in the making begins with the Japanese cartoonist's experiences as a child growing up in Osaka, in a country burdened by the shadows of World War II, and spans fifteen years from August 1945 to June 1960, during which time his stand-in protagonist, Hiroshi, faces his father's financial burdens and his parents' failing marriage, his jealous brother's deteriorating health, and the pitfalls that await him in the competitive manga market of mid-twentieth-century Japan.