Natsume Sōseki
1867–1916 · novelist · Japan
Arts and ideas31 years old in 1898
Natsume Sōseki 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. His major works include I Am a Cat (1905), Botchan (1906), Sanshirō (1908), Kokoro (1914), and his unfinished final novel Light and Dark (1916).
Read more on WikipediaThe world around them · Tokyo, 1870s
- Who governs
- Former samurai rule in the emperor's name. The old feudal domains are abolished in 1871.
- Everyday life
- Most people still farm. From 1873 the land tax is paid in money instead of rice.
- Arts and ideas
- Woodblock prints show trains, gas lamps and brick streets, and Western painting is taught for the first time.
- Meanwhile
- France has just lost a war and become a republic again, and the United States marks its centennial in 1876.
Their life in their time
- 1867
- 18670 years oldSakamoto Ryōma is assassinated
- 18681 years old
- 18681 years oldThe Meiji Restoration
- 18725 years oldJapan's first railway
- 187710 years oldThe last samurai revolt
- 191245 years old
- 191649 years oldDies
