1867-1916 · Meiji-era Japanese novelist who taught in Matsuyama and Kumamoto, studied in London (1900-1902), lectured at Tokyo Imperial University and from 1907 wrote novels for the Asahi Shimbun
Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916), pen name of Natsume Kinnosuke, was a Meiji-era Japanese novelist. Trained in English literature, he taught at the middle school in Matsuyama and the Fifth High School in Kumamoto, studied in London from 1900 to 1902, lectured at Tokyo Imperial University, and from 1907 wrote novels as a staff writer for the Asahi Shimbun. His works include I Am a Cat, Botchan, Sanshirō and Kokoro.
Botchan is a comic first-person novel about a hot-tempered, stubbornly honest young man from Tokyo who spends a few months teaching mathematics in a provincial middle school and cannot bear the scheming he finds there. The narrator is never named; the old family servant Kiyo calls him Botchan, roughly 'young master', which this translation renders as Master Darling.
Sanshirō follows Ogawa Sanshirō, a young graduate of the higher school in Kumamoto, through his first autumn and winter as a student at Tokyo Imperial University in the late Meiji period. The novel opens on the long train journey from Kyushu.
Kokoro, a word meaning heart, mind or the core of things, is in three parts. In the first, 'Sensei and I', a young university student in Tokyo meets an older man at the seaside resort of Kamakura and is drawn to him, calling him Sensei, 'teacher'.
