![]() What is all the fuss about? Through a series of novels, beginning with the comic tomes 1905’s I am a Cat and 1906’s Botchan, the author created stories and characters that probed - with tragic intensity - the bedeviling self-consciousness, moral ambiguity, and fragility of contemporary human relationships. ![]() “Long time no see, everyone,” jokes the artificial man. The android, via the voice of manga columnist Fusanosuke Natsume, the grandson of the writer, recites passages from the Sōseki volume Ten Nights of Dreams and responds to questions. Head-spinning proof of Sōseki’s stature in Japan - and the country’s hyperbolic esteem for its writers - comes in the form of a “robotic replica” of the author, which was unveiled yesterday at Tokyo’s Nishogakusha University. ![]() Natsume Sōseki didn’t live to complete his final (and longest) novel, Light and Dark, which he was publishing in daily installments for his employer (since 1907), the Asahi newspaper. ![]() If that’s correct, then maybe finally we’re reaching the Sōseki moment in the English-speaking world.”Ī hundred years ago today one of the major writers of the 20th century, a giant of Japanese literature, died from stomach cancer at the age of 49. “Natsume Sōseki once wrote a letter of encouragement to a younger writer, telling him that the true value of a literary work isn’t known until a hundred years have passed. ![]()
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