---
node: natsume_soseki
type: person
slug: natsume_soseki
title: "Natsume Soseki"
lead: "Natsume Soseki (1867–1916) is modern Japan's national novelist, author of I Am a Cat, Botchan, and Kokoro. His portrait was on the 1,000-yen note from 1984 to 2004."
published: 2026-07-09
updated: 2026-07-09
image_file: natsume_soseki.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natsume_Soseki_photo.jpg"
image_author: "Ogawa Kazumasa"
image_license: "Public domain"
---

## Who they were

Born in Edo at the Restoration's dawn, he became a scholar of English literature and was sent by the government to London (1900–02), an experience he found miserable. He returned to succeed Lafcadio Hearn at Tokyo Imperial University.

## What they did

In 1907 he famously quit academia to write serialized novels for the Asahi Shimbun. After the satirical "I Am a Cat" (1905–06) and the beloved "Botchan" (1906) came darker masterpieces of individual loneliness in a modernizing society — "Sanshiro", "And Then", and "Kokoro" (1914).

He died of a stomach illness in 1916, leaving "Light and Darkness" unfinished.

## Legacy

His portrait was on the 1,000-yen note from 1984 to 2004. He is the writer who gave modern Japanese its literary voice — and its classic account of the modern self.