Kusamakura

Description

A stunning new English translation–the first in more than forty years–of a major novel by the father of modern Japanese fiction

Natsume Soseki’s Kusamakura–meaning “grass pillow”–follows its nameless young artist-narrator on a meandering walking tour of the mountains. At the inn at a hot spring resort, he has a series of mysterious encounters with Nami, the lovely young daughter of the establishment. Nami, or “beauty,” is the center of this elegant novel, the still point around which the artist moves and the enigmatic subject of Soseki’s word painting. In the author’s words, Kusamakura is “a haiku-style novel, that lives through beauty.” Written at a time when Japan was opening its doors to the rest of the world, Kusamakura turns inward, to the pristine mountain idyll and the taciturn lyricism of its courtship scenes, enshrining the essence of old Japan in a work of enchanting literary nostalgia.
Binding Type: Paperback
Contributors: Natsume Soseki,Meredith McKinney (Translator),Meredith McKinney (Introduction by)
Published: 01/29/2008
Publisher: Penguin Classics
ISBN: 9780143105190
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.31lbs
Size: 0.45″ H x 7.04″ L x 5.56″ W

About the Author
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), one of Japan’s most influential modern writers, is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji era (1868-1914) and a master of psychological fiction. As well as his works of fiction, his essays, haiku, and kanshi have been influential and are popular even today.

Meredith McKinney (translator) holds a PhD in medieval Japanese literature from the University in Canberra, where she teaches in the Japan Centre. She lived and taught in Japan for twenty years and now lives near Braidwood, New South Wales. Her other translations include Ravine and Other Stories, The Tale of Saigyo, and for Penguin Classics, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, and Kusamakura.