Natsume, Soseki << NAHT soo `meh,` SOH seh `kee` >> (1867-1916), was Japan’s first great modern novelist. Natsume was a member of the first generation of Japanese youth exposed to Western books and ideas. His writing reflects his response to the problems of living in the modern world. He wrote about doubt and faith; self-assertion and self-questioning; alienation from industrial, mechanized society; and personal identity.
Natsume wrote 10 novels and several short stories. His first works were satires of the Japanese society of his time. He gained immediate fame with his first novel, I Am a Cat (1905-1906). This episodic story is narrated by a cat who sardonically observes his master and neighbors. Little Master (1906) also indicts modern society. The story is narrated by a country teacher whose old-fashioned virtues are of little use in his changing world. The best known of Natsume’s later, and more somber, works is Kokoro (1914). The novel tells the story of a young man’s relationships with an older man and his father, told partly through letters. His other novels include The Three-Cornered World (1906) and Grass on the Wayside (1915).
Natsume was born on Feb. 9, 1867, in Tokyo. His real name was Kinnosuke Natsume. He trained as a scholar of English literature, studying in England from 1900 to 1902. In 1907, he joined the staff of the Asahi newspaper, which published many of his novels in serial form. Natsume died on Dec. 9, 1916.
