Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
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Kokoro

Author: Natsume Soseki, Meredith McKinney

Narrator: Kotaro Watanabe, Elizabeth Jasicki

Unabridged: 9 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 08/10/2021


Synopsis

“Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature.”—Haruki Murakami

The father of modern Japanese literature's best-loved novel, in its first new English translation in half a century
 
No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro—meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei." Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century.

About The Author

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), one of Japan's most influential modern writers, is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji era (1868-1914) and a master of psychological fiction. As well as his works of fiction, his essays, haiku, and kanshi have been influential and are popular even today.    Meredith McKinney (translator) holds a PhD in medieval Japanese literature from the University in Canberra, where she teaches in the Japan Centre. She lived and taught in Japan for twenty years and now lives near Braidwood, New South Wales. Her other translations include Ravine and Other Stories, The Tale of Saigyo, and for Penguin Classics, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, and Kusamakura.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on June 29, 2020

The main character is a young man, a college student, who meets an older man at a beach resort. Over time he develops a strong admiration for him, visiting at his home and calling him Sensei. The interesting thing about the “wise” old man is that he does nothing. He seems to be a scholar but doesn’t......more

Goodreads review by Federico on March 30, 2024

Sometimes you feel the desire to know the all-time greatest different nationalities have created through history. In this case, a japanese classic. This novel is divided into three parts of a same story, taking place during the Meiji reign, around the 1800s. The laborious life of an university stu......more

Goodreads review by Sasha on September 21, 2020

It's not that you've done something wrong! It's that you haven't done anything. The critical moment in this book will seem so familiar to you: you've not done something like it hundreds of times, or realized you were in danger of not doing it. A conversation must be had. You gotta break up with some......more


Quotes

"This elegant novel...suffuses the reader with a sense of old Japan." —Los Angeles Times 

"Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature." —Haruki Murakami