“This elegant novel…suffuses the reader with a sense of old Japan.” —Los Angeles Times 

“Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature.” —Haruki Murakami

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) is often considered the greatest modern Japanese novelist. In 1900, his government sent him to England for two years as ‘Japan’s first Japanese English literary scholar’, but he had a miserable time there. Returning to Japan, he wrote his greatest novels, including Botchan, Sanshiro and Kokoro, as well as essays, haiku, and kanshi.