Making Dying Illegal

“Arakawa and Gins’ Making Dying Illegal is, like all great satire, a serious contribution to a serious problem—a problem that so far each of us has had to face for him-or herself, namely that of stopping being. Who but this singular collaborative pair has risen to the occasion of addressing death as a misdemeanor, if not a felony, on the part of the one who has died? For the first time death is treated not as a certainty of a necessity, but as an option it should be illegal to exercise. The book joins, if it does not constitute, the exiguous library of thanatosophical masterpieces. Its aim, of course, is not literary. It is corollary to the authors’ audacious imperative to take destiny in hand and reverse it.”

—Arthur Danto

  • English edition:
    Paperback: 224 pages
    Publisher: Roof Books, New York, 2006
    ISBN-13: 978-1931824224

  • Japanese edition:
    Paperback: 224 pages
    Publisher: Shunjusha, Tokyo, 2007
    ISBN-13: 978-4-393-33273-3