R&R: Yoshihiro Tatsumi, adrift

Features Hagai Palevsky | August 20, 2026 Implicit in the authoring of an autobiography is the assumption — justified or otherwise — that one’s life story is worth telling. Implicit in the translation of an autobiography is the assumption — whether justified or otherwise — that the merit of the work endures even divorced from its original geographical-cultural context. In this regard, the translation of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s 850-page A Drifting Life, originally serialized over twelve years in the in-house magazine of the Japanese second-hand collectibles chain Mandarake, then published in English by Drawn & Quarterly (with a translation by Taro Nattleton), has certainly benefited from its time out of print. Between the time of its original English publication in 2009 and its reprint in November of last year, English-language readers have received a far wider — though, naturally, in no way full — view of alternative manga past and present, thanks not only to D&Q but to newer publishers like Breakdown Press and Glacier Bay Books, allowing readers of a more exegetical inclination to better situate Tatsumi within the historical landscape. A Drifting Life covers a period of fiftee...