Castalia House has published an original new translation of Botchan by Natsume Sōseki, in case Japanese literature happens to be of any interest to you.
“I have been reckless since the day I was born…”
So begins one of the funniest and most beloved novels in Japanese literature. Published in 1906, Natsume Soseki’s Botchan has never gone out of print, never lost its bite, and never stopped making readers laugh.
Fresh out of school with no ambitions, no money, and no talent for diplomacy, Botchan accepts a teaching post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and immediately regrets it. The students are savages. The headmaster is a windbag. His colleagues are a gallery of petty conspirators he can only keep straight by the nicknames he invents for them: Red Shirt, Clown, Porcupine, the Pale Squash. The only person in the world who believes in him is Kiyo, the old family servant back in Tokyo who still calls him “Botchan” (young master) and waits for him to come home.
Botchan has no filter, no patience, and no reverse gear. He says what he thinks, picks fights he can’t win, and keeps a running tally of every slight. He is also, beneath the bluster, deeply loyal, quietly heartbroken, and funnier than he knows.
This new translation by Kenji Weaver, whose acclaimed translation of Soseki’s Kokoro introduced a new generation of English readers to Japan’s greatest novelist of the Meiji era, captures the novel’s headlong energy and deadpan comedy in crisp, natural English.