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Cover of Botchan by Natsume Sōseki

Botchan

Natsume Sōseki, Dennis Washburn and others

  • 178 pages · about 3 hours
  • First published 1906
  • 120 editions
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1 About this book

The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent some time teaching English in a boys' school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges; and the result is a chain of collisions large and small.

Here, in a new translation much better suited to Western tastes than any of its forebears, Botchan's homespun appeal is all the more apparent.

Good for readers who want: humor and adventure.

  • Humor
  • Japan
  • Adventure
  • Near and far eastern fiction
  • Teachers
  • Boys
  • Illustrations
  • Commerce

2 About Natsume Sōseki

1867–1916

Natsume Sōseki (; Japanese: 夏目 漱石; born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助); 9 February 1867 – 9 December 1916) was a Japanese novelist, poet, and scholar. He is considered one of the greatest writers in modern Japanese history and is often called the first modern novelist of Japan. Sōseki's fiction explored themes of individualism, loneliness, and the conflict between traditional Japanese values and the rapid Westernization of the Meiji era.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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