Natsume Sōseki
1867–1916
Biography
Natsume Sōseki, born Natsume Kinnosuke, was a Japanese novelist, poet and scholar of English literature, and he is often called the first modern novelist of Japan. He was born in Edo, now Tokyo, in February 1867, shortly before the Meiji Restoration. His childhood was unsettled, and he was given up for adoption twice. He studied English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, taught in Matsuyama and Kumamoto, and in 1900 was sent by the government to London, where he spent two hard years marked by poverty and illness. After returning he lectured at Tokyo Imperial University, and in 1907 he gave up that post to write full time for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
From 1905, with the satirical novel I Am a Cat, he produced roughly one novel a year until his death, alongside poetry, haiku and literary criticism. His books deal with individualism, loneliness and the strain between older Japanese values and the rapid Westernization of the Meiji era. Humour and pessimism sit side by side in them. He suffered from stomach ulcers and recurring mental illness for much of his adult life. He died in December 1916, leaving his last novel, Light and Dark, unfinished. His portrait appeared on the 1,000-yen note of Japan from 1984 to 2004.
Three of his books are on this site, in Japanese. I Am a Cat (吾輩は猫である, 1905) is a satire narrated by a cat in a schoolteacher's household. Botchan (坊っちゃん, 1906) is a comic story about a young Tokyo man sent to teach at a provincial school. Kokoro (こころ, 1914) is a more serious novel about a young man's bond with an older man he calls Sensei, and the guilt that shapes that older man's life. Together they show his range, from comedy to his later psychological work.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
こころ
by 夏目漱石
A young man in Kamakura befriends a withdrawn older man he calls Sensei, whose silence about his past draws him in until a long letter, written before Sensei's death, tells what he never said. Natsume Soseki's novel of 1914, serialised in the Asahi Shimbun, follows the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.吾輩は猫である
by 夏目漱石
A nameless cat who lives with a schoolteacher called Kushami watches the household and the friends who come to talk, scheme and boast in his study. Natsume Soseki's first novel (1905–06) turns the cat's dry eye on the airs of Meiji intellectuals and their endless talk. This book…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.坊っちゃん
by 夏目漱石
A hot-tempered young graduate from Tokyo takes a post teaching mathematics at a middle school in the provinces, where scheming colleagues and mischievous pupils soon try his patience. Natsume Soseki's comic novel of 1906 sets one honest man's quick fists against the small…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.