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Soseki Natsume's Kokoro: The Manga Edition

The Heart of Things

Soseki Natsume author Makiko Itoh translator Nagi Yoshizaki editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Tuttle Publishing

Published:23rd Apr '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Soseki Natsume's Kokoro: The Manga Edition cover

A timeless psychological study of a young man's deep alienation from society.

Set in the early 20th century, Kokoro opens with a chance encounter on a beach near Tokyo that irrevocably links a young student to a man he simply calls Sensei (Teacher). Intrigued by Sensei's aloofness, the student calls upon him with increasing frequency. Eventually, Sensei and his beautiful wife open their home and their lives to him. Only later does the student learn the devastating secret that has haunted Sensei since his youth.

Kokoro has sold millions of copies in Japan where it is taught in schools and is a perennial favorite. Its lucid prose and universal themes of friendship, betrayal and the struggle for meaning in a changing world have made it popular internationally as well. This English-language manga version will make the book accessible to a new generation of foreign readers.

The manga includes depictions of suicide and may not be suitable for some readers.

"Soseki Natsume is a great writer to have in anyone's collection. At his best, his prose is lush and rife with human observation and insight. He is capable of genuine pathos as seen in his novels such as Kokoro and I Am a Cat, but he is also capable of great humor and satire, as in the case of both Cat and Botchan." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"This retelling absolutely did the original text justice. This is possibly my favorite manga retelling of a Japanese classic. All the important details were there— the layered emotions of the characters, the complex relationships between them, the tension and the anguish, and then of course the famous quotes that many readers have come to hold dear through the years since this classic had been brought to an international audience." —Dominique Jardiolin, @chroniqled bookstagram

ISBN: 9784805317747

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

192 pages