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Cover of I Am a Cat I by Natsume Sōseki

I Am a Cat I

Natsume Sōseki, Tyrol Kobata and others

  • 431 pages · about 7 hours
  • First published 1905
  • 47 editions
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1 About this book

Written over the course of 1904 through 1906, Soseki's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him.

The New Yorker called it "a nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action ..."

Good for readers who want: humor, poetry, and cats.

  • Japan
  • Cats
  • Humor
  • Near and far eastern fiction
  • Poetry
  • Middle class
  • Social life and customs
  • Pets

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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