Kokoro

A hauntingly beautiful melodrama exploring the friendship between a young man and his mentor

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Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature Haruki Murukami

Kokoro is exactly what you would ask a novel to be... Sōseki manipulates every detail with the same thrilling masterySpectator

Sparsely populated, simple but perfect... it is a melancholy but stoical study in lonelinessSunday Telegraph

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In this melancholy and delicately written Japanese classic, a student befriends a reclusive elder at a beach resort, who he calls Sensei. As the two grow closer, Sensei remains unwilling to share the inner pain that has consumed his life and the shameful secret behind his monthly pilgrimages to a Tokyo cemetery.

But when the student writes to Sensei after his graduation to seek out advice, the past rushes unbidden to the surface, and Sensei at last reveals the tale of romantic betrayal and unresolved guilt that led to his withdrawal from the world. Set at the end of the Meiji era and rife with subtle, psychological insight, Kokoro is one of Japans bestselling novels of all time and a stunning meditation on the essence of loneliness.