is a thinly veiled autobiographical Japanese manga written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Tatsumi that chronicles his life from 1945 to 1960, the early stages of his career as a cartoonist. The book earned Tatsumi the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and won two Eisner Awards. The work has been adapted into an animated feature film, Tatsumi, directed by Eric Khoo and released in 2011. Publication history Tatsumi spent 11 years working on A Drifting Life. It was released in Japan as two bound volumes on November 20, 2008. It is licensed in North America by Drawn & Quarterly and was released as an 840-page wide-ban volume in April 2009. The English version was translated by Taro Nettleton, and edited and designed by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine. The book has been translated into French as Une Vie dans les marges ("A Life on the Margins") (Editions Cornelius, 2011), and into German as Gegen den Strom — Eine Autobiografie in Bilder ("Against the Current — an Autobiography in Pictures") (Carlsen Verlag, 2013). A Brazilian translation, Vida à Deriva ("A Life Adrift"), was published in 2021 by Veneta. Plot Hiroshi Katsumi (Yoshihiro Tatsumi) and his sickly older brother Okimasa (Shōichi Sakurai) work on amateur four-panel manga to submit to magazines that feature reader's work, winning several times. After like-minded children correspond with Hiroshi, they form the Children's Manga Association. This results in a round table discussion for the grade school edition of Mainichi Shimbun with Osamu Tezuka. Hiroshi forms a relationship with Tezuka, who encourages him to try making longer stories. also gives him feedback and advice for his longer manga through letters. After Okimasa rips one of his works in progress, Hiroshi momentarily quits manga, but is encouraged after a letter from Ōshiro. Ōshiro later asks to redraw and publish Katsumi's Happily Adrift, but does not end up doing so. Ōshiro offers Hiroshi a chance to live at his home "dojo" with other aspiring manga artists, but Hiroshi decides to postpone until he graduates high school. One of the members of Ōshiro's dojo, Yoshiyasu Ōtomo, shows Katsumi's Children's Island to the publisher Tsuru Shobo, who publishes it, though they preemptively reject his next work. Hiroshi decides to attend college instead of apprenticing with Ōshiro, studying for entrance exams, but purposefully doesn't finish the exam. He meets with publisher Kenbunsha, who commissions him to create a detective story similar to Lupin, but they reduce