When I studied the life and career of Hashiguchi Goyo, I discovered that he illustrated the first novel of the Japanese writer Natsume Soseki. During my stay in Japan I read almost all novels of Soseki, including his first one called "I am a cat". In the Meiji period Natsume Soseki was one of the youngsters sent out abroad to gather knowledge for the development of Japan. He was sent to Europe (United Kingdom) to study English literature. In his later years Soseki has written about his stay in England. It was the most miserable and loniest time of his life. Back in Japan he taught English literature but soon left the university to become a succesful writer. Even today he his still an icon of Japanese literature and the most important prewar modern writer of Japan.
His life coincided with the Meiji period. A turbulent period of modernization of the Japanese society after two centuries of isolation. The uneasy relationship between modernization (Westernization) and Japanese culture is one of the major themes of his work. In his novels one can taste the atmosphere of change in Japan, the way modernization affects individual relationhips and the uneasiness it produces. Natsume Soseki died at the age of 49 and left his last novel "Light and Darkness" unfinished.