Natsume Sōseki

Natsume Sōseki, born Natsume Kinnosuke in 1867 in Edo, is the greatest writer of modern Japanese literature; his portrait once appeared on the thousand-yen note. A graduate in English from Tokyo Imperial University, he was sent by the government to study in London for two years from 1900, where in loneliness and nervous exhaustion he wrestled with the relation between Eastern and Western culture. On his return he succeeded Lafcadio Hearn as lecturer in English literature at Tokyo, and in 1905 became famous overnight with I Am a Cat. Two years later he left the university to write full-time for the Asahi newspaper, and in the following decade produced Botchan, Sanshirō, And Then, The Gate and Kokoro, among other masterpieces. He died of a stomach ulcer in 1916.