The Man Without Talent - Yoshiharu Tsuge

The Man Without Talent by Yoshiharu Tsuge, translated by Ryan Holmberg / ISBN 9781681374437 / 240-page paperback from New York Review Comics  *** A Japanese manga legend's autobiographical graphic novel about a struggling artist and the first full-length work by the great Yoshiharu Tsuge available in the English language. "My most pleasurable reading experience of 2020 was Ryan Holmberg's translation of Yoshiharu Tsuge’s The Man Without Talent (NYRC). Holmberg's translated dialogue is full of vernacular poetry, which I imagine/hope is quite close to the experience of reading the Japanese version. It certainly fits Tsuge’s gorgeous cartooning, which is often unfussy and employed to effectively tell the story, but sometimes surprises with its soft and loving approximation of the Japanese countryside and shacks full of possessions . . . I haven't been able to recommend this book enough.” —Nicholas Burman, The Comic Journal Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of comics' most celebrated and influential