Soseki Natsume's Kokoro

' Natsume Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature.' – Haruki Murakami

A chance encounter irrevocably links a university student to an older man he simply calls Sensei ('Teacher'). Intrigued by Sensei's aloofness, the student visits him with increasing frequency, and Sensei and his beautiful wife eventually open their home and lives to him. The student graduates and is called home to care for his dying father, but Sensei draws him back with a letter revealing a secret that has shadowed him since youth.

Written in 1914, toward the end of Soseki's career, Kokoro provides a timeless psychological analysis of man's alienation from society. It is recognized as one of his most important works and a milestone in the emergence of the psychological novel in Japan. Its universal themes of friendship, betrayal and the struggle for meaning in a rapidly changing world continue to resonate today.

About the Authors

Soseki Natsume is the pen name of Kinnosuke Natsume, born in 1867 in Japan. A prolific author of poetry, fiction and essays, Soseki wrote some of Japan's most beloved novels, including I Am a Cat, Botchan , and Kokoro. He is so revered in Japan that his image appeared on the 1000 Yen banknote for many years.

Edwin McClellan was a leading scholar, translator and professor of Japanese literature at Yale University. He is noted for his translations of Soseki's Kokoro and Grass on the Wayside, and is the author of Two Japanese Novelists: Soseki and Toson . He was awarded the Noma Prize for literary translation and the Japanese government's Order of the Rising Sun.

J. Keith Vincent teaches Japanese literature at Boston University, where he also directs the MFA Program in Literary Translation. His translations include A Riot of Goldfish by Kanoko Okamoto, Devils in Daylight by Junichiro Tanizaki, and Soseki's novel Michikusa , forthcoming from Tuttle.