Natsume Sōseki

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Lore & Background

Natsume Sōseki was born on 9 February 1867 in Edo (present-day Tokyo), the youngest of eight children. His parents, aged fifty-one and forty-one at his birth, were ashamed of having a child so late in life and put him up for adoption shortly after birth. His first foster parents were a couple who bought and sold used goods; Sōseki later wrote that they would leave him unattended in a basket at a nighttime bazaar. He was soon returned to his family after one of his sisters found him. In 1870, at age four, he was adopted again by a childless couple, Shiobara Shōnosuke and his wife Yasu. At age six, he contracted smallpox, which left his nose and cheeks permanently scarred. He lived with the Shiobaras until age nine, when his foster father took a mistress and left the house. In 1876, his biological father reclaimed him, and for years the two fathers engaged in a 'tug-of-war' for control over him. In 1888, when Sōseki was twenty-one, a formal agreement was reached: Naokatsu paid Shiobara 240 yen in compensation for 'seven years of care and education,' and Kinnosuke was officially re-registered as Naokatsu's fourth son. The trauma of these years contributed to the misanthropy and sense of alienation that pervade his writing. Sōseki graduated from Tokyo Imperial University and became a scholar of English literature. In 1900, the Japanese government sent him to study in London for two years as the country's first English literary scholar. His two years in London were the most miserable of his life, a 'very trying experience' marked by poverty, racial alienation, and a severe nervous breakdown. He felt like 'a stray dog mixing with a pack of wolves.' He spent most of his time reading voraciously in his room, amassing a library of some four hundred volumes. This period marked an intense intellectual crisis, the 'dark night of Sōseki's soul,' during which he resolved to seek a new, universal definition of literature on his own terms. Upon his return to Japan, he succeeded Lafcadio Hearn as a lecturer in English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1905, he achieved fame with the satirical novel I Am a Cat. This success prompted him to resign his university post in 1907 to become a full-time author for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, a move that marked the birth of the professional artist in modern Japan.

Reader's Guide

Sōseki's significance lies in his role as a foundational figure of modern Japanese literature. His work is characterized by psychological depth, a blend of humor and pessimism, and exploration of the human ego. For the rest of his life, he published a novel a year while also writing poetry and literary criticism. His fiction examined the tension between traditional Japanese values and the rapid Westernization of the Meiji era, as well as themes of individualism and loneliness. Throughout his adult life, he suffered from severe stomach ulcers and recurring bouts of mental illness, including paranoid delusions, which deeply affected his work and personal life. He died from complications of his stomach condition in 1916 at the age of 49, leaving his final novel, Light and Dark, unfinished. His influence on Japanese literature is profound, and he remains one of the country's most beloved and widely read authors. His portrait appeared on the 1,000-yen banknote from 1984 to 2004.

Did You Know?

• Sōseki's parents were aged fifty-one and forty-one at his birth and considered him an unwelcome burden, putting him up for adoption shortly after he was born.
• At age six, he contracted smallpox, which left his nose and cheeks permanently scarred, contributing to a sense of self-contempt throughout his life.
• In 1888, his biological father paid his adoptive father 240 yen in compensation for 'seven years of care and education' to officially reclaim him as a son.
• During his two years in London, Sōseki felt like 'a stray dog mixing with a pack of wolves' and amassed a library of some four hundred volumes.
• His portrait appeared on the 1,000-yen banknote from 1984 to 2004.