Even if they do recognize the man, Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) for many non-Japanese is no more than the prim blue gent in the mustache that once peered out from the 1,000 yen bill. Yet Soseki is the dominant figure in modern Japanese literature. If asked to name their greatest modern novelist, most Japanese wouldn't hesitate in choosing the Tokyo-born writer.
Soseki's time was an exciting one in literature. In the last decade of his life, during which Soseki wrote the 14 novels that cemented his reputation, modernism was cranking into gear and James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were finding their literary voices.
When Soseki began his first novel, the humorous "I Am a Cat," in 1905, though, the most important literary influence in Japan was the European naturalism of Emile Zola. And the first great expression of this style in Japan -- the first modern Japanese novel really comparable with what Europeans were writing -- was "Broken Commandment," published in 1906 by Shimazaki Toson (1872-1943).