Botchan: A Modern Classic - Tapa dura

"Soseki's lightest and funniest work." - Donald Keene "This rollicking rebel, and the spice and pace of the narrative, will appeal to parent, teacher, and schoolchild alike." - Times Literary Supplement "Natsume Soseki is unquestionably one of Japan's greatest modern novelists and the easiest approach to his work is through his delightful early satire, BOTCHAN." - Oliver Statler"

"Botchan" is a hilarious tale about a young man's rebellion in a country school. It is a classic of its kind, and has enjoyed a timeless popularity, making it, according to Donald Keene, "probably the most widely read novel in modern Japan". The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent four years teaching English in a middle school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes teacher Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges resulting in a chain of collisions large and small. Most of the story seems to occur in summer, against the drone of cicadas and the bite of mosquitoes. And, in every way this is a summer book - light, sunny, and fun to read. Here, in a lively new translation much better suited to the modern reader than its forebears, "Botchan" should continue to entertain future generations.