Natsume Sōseki

Biography

Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916), pen name of Natsume Kinnosuke, was a Japanese novelist who is widely considered the greatest writer of modern Japanese literature. Born in Tokyo during the final years of the Edo period, Sōseki studied English literature at Tokyo Imperial University and spent two unhappy years in London (1900–1902) on a government scholarship. Upon returning to Japan, he became a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University before leaving academia to become a full-time novelist for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. His debut novel, I Am a Cat (1905–1906), a satirical portrait of Meiji-era intellectuals narrated by a cat, was an immediate success. Sōseki produced a remarkable body of work over the next decade, including Botchan (1906), Kusamakura (1906), Sanshirō (1908), Kokoro (1914), and the unfinished Light and Dark (1916). His fiction explores the psychological tensions of Japan’s rapid modernization: the conflict between Western individualism and Japanese social obligation, the isolation of modern intellectuality, and the difficulty of genuine human connection. Sōseki’s portrait appears on the Japanese 1,000-yen note, reflecting his central place in Japanese culture.