Death from Overwork
Tags
Summary
If work is too hard, you can take leave, or you can quit. When you first start a job and are in good physical and mental shape, you can see these options. But making the decision is not simple. Losing your source of income, not wanting to worry your parents, not having found the next job—all kinds of reasons keep you gritting your teeth and carrying on, and so you overwork, your field of vision narrows, and before you know it, it has narrowed so much that you forget there are options other than continuing to work. As a result, unable to escape your current life, you get trapped in the thought that "dying would be a relief," and you lose your normal judgment. Just when you think, "Oh, I'll get through it somehow," misfortune may suddenly strike tomorrow.
This book is based on the author's special report on karoshi cases published in The Asahi Shimbun; it selects 11 representative cases and conducts in-depth interviews with the 11 bereaved families, exposing the true situation of the karoshi problem in Japanese workplaces. What state of mind were the people who collapsed at work in as they labored so hard? How did they struggle in the end? In what kind of shadow do the family members left behind spend the rest of their lives? Why are karoshi and sudden death becoming more and more common in today's society? The author recounts the cases and analyzes the phenomenon from several angles, including medical and legal concepts and the social environment, offering the world this work of documentary literature that restores the heartbreaking truth.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Working people who endure long hours and exhaustion but dare not rest
- Readers concerned with labor rights and social issues
- HR professionals and union practitioners
- Anyone wanting to understand karoshi recognition and its legal context in Japan
Not a good fit for
- People in acute psychological crisis who are easily affected by negative cases
- Readers who want quick conclusions and are unwilling to read case details
- Researchers expecting systematic theory or policy solutions
Reading tips
- Read only one or two cases at a time, then allow time to process your feelings before continuing.
- When reading about a person's situation, make a brief note comparing it with your own working conditions.
- Pay attention to the medical and legal concepts to understand the real difficulties of karoshi recognition.
- Read alongside colleagues or friends and discuss "when to stop."
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 前言 我的梦想
- 第一章 抛下幼子离世的市政府职员
- 前往纪伊国
- 温柔的爸爸
- 与个性不合的工作
- 申告书中坦白：非常痛苦
- 最后的纸牌游戏
- “不能休息呀”
- 终究越过了“界限”
- 纪见岭
- 组织机构的“马虎”带来了过重的负担？
- 对他说“不能去上班呀”
- 震动全国的《我的梦想》
- 第二章 牛排店员工饱受上司的暴力折磨
- 打烊后的深夜时分……
- 极端的长时间工作
- 自我了断的真实原因是？
- 同事所见证的暴言和暴行
- 心地善良的青年
- 父亲的悔意
- 母亲未了的心愿
- 审判
- 若是有爱……
- 不成熟且没有常识的“上司”
- 判决
- 进入刑事诉讼阶段
- 专栏一 “累得要死不如直接辞职”
- 第三章 公共广播机构年轻女记者的过劳死
- 向日葵一般的人
- 大型选举接连不断、工作繁重的夏天
- 生日邮件透露出的求救信号
- 身处异国收到女儿的讣告
- 繁重工作的结果
- 松懈的工作时间管理
- 在职场也被孤立？
- 为女儿的繁重工作感到担忧
- 4年后公布事实的背后
- 父母的苦恼
- NHK把内部人员的过劳死忘得一干二净？
- 暴露出的沟通不足
- NHK会有所改变吗？
- 第四章 热血教师倒下了
- 扫墓
- 从修学旅行回家后……
- “别认输啊义男”
- “正义的英雄”
- 终年无休的繁重工作
- 中学老师有六成达到过劳死红线
- 10年后
- 拯救家人的是……
- “斗志”
- 专栏二 检查一下工作时间
- 第五章 超市员工义务加班后迎来过劳死
- 脑梗塞
- 海风吹拂的小镇
- 看不见的工作时间
- 疑惑渐深
- 为何要义务加班？
- 另一起案件
- 提诉
- 专栏三 工会的作用
- 第六章 24岁新进员工的“过劳事故死亡”
- 事故现场
- 接二连三的深夜工作
- 事故可以避免？
- 太想成为正式员工了
- 母亲的愤怒
- 审判
- 法庭上的见闻
- 和解
- 新的战斗
- 第七章 一直夜班出勤的录像带出租店员工，离职半年后过劳死
- 坚持站在最高法院前的父亲
- 集双亲之爱于一身
- 因勤奋努力而加班
- 离职后身体健康也没恢复
- 低鸣惊叫
- 审判
- 过劳死也会发生在辞职后
- 15年苦战的结果
- 守护父母的观音像
- 专栏四 在夜班中求生
- 第八章 被心理疾病击垮的“小镇邮递员”
- 满怀忧虑的早晨
- 埼玉新都心
- 自毁式销售
- 工作调动拨乱命运
- 令人焦头烂额的话
- 抑郁症
- 妻子的思念
- 未能实现的岗位调动
- 然后迈向和解
- 专栏五 预防因心理问题产生的自杀现象
- 第九章 “零元加班费”将家装推销员逼入绝境
- 来自读者的邮件
- 突然的自杀
- 公司经营困难
- 家装推销
- “零元加班费”的冲击
- 高达数百万日元的债务
- 即使工作，即使工作也……
- 不合理的薪资制度
- 固定加班津贴
- 没有加班费的工作方式
- 工伤认定失败
- 要是我更强大一些的话……
- 专栏六 如果有人对你说“我想死”
- 第十章 互相支持的丧亲家庭
- 互相交流的空间
- 生前是汽车修理工的儿子
- 一段视频
- 一路支持的“前辈”
- 在当地组建家族协会
- 遗属们的25年
- 无法治愈的悲伤之中
- 第十一章 上司的训斥深深伤害了县政公务员的心
- 抛下怀有身孕的妻子
- 妻子的笔记
- 内部调查揭露的真相
- 密室状态的职场
- 伤心难安的遗属
- “加害者”的理由
- 没有“恶人”的可怕
- 遗书
- 专栏七 职权霸凌的对策：受害者与加害者都需要
- 后记
- 参考文献
FAQ
What is this book mainly about?
Is it too heavy to read?
Does the book offer solutions?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Makuuchi Shohei is a Japanese journalist who has long reported on karoshi (death from overwork) and labor-environment issues. In his interviews and writing, he has continued to follow cases of health damage and even death caused by excessive work, examining working hours, workplace pressure, and institutional factors together, so that karoshi is no longer seen merely as an individual tragedy but as a social issue open to public discussion. His representative work, Karoshi, belongs to literary reportage and continues the path of investigative journalism, using specific cases and the circumstances of those involved to present the reality of long working hours and overwork in Japanese workplaces. Because public information is limited, details of his life, education, and career are difficult to confirm; what can be confirmed is that as a journalist he has long devoted himself to this field, and his work combines investigation with social concern, offering Chinese readers a direct documentary text for understanding the issue of karoshi in Japan.
Mei Xinzhi is an author about whom little public information is available. Only one work appears under this name: the nonfiction title Death from Overwork. Judging from the book's title and its classification as reportage, the author focuses on real-world issues related to labor intensity, workplace pressure, and workers' health, adopting an approach grounded in factual cases and on-site observation. Because reliable information on nationality, dates of birth and death, education, and writing career is lacking, it is difficult to assess the full scope of the author's work or style, or to confirm whether any writings exist beyond Death from Overwork. On the available evidence, Mei Xinzhi's interests lie in social reality, particularly the overlooked human cost of contemporary working conditions—a subject of clear public concern and cautionary value that readers may appreciate in the context of reportage literature.
