Castalia House Publisher Vox Day announced that the company has published a new translation of the popular Japanese novel Botchan by Natsume Sōseki.
This new translation is done by Kenji Weaver, who previously translated Sōseki’s Kokoro.
The novel was originally published in 1906 and has not gone out of print since. The story follows the narrator, who is nicknamed Botchan, after he graduates from a physics academy and takes a job as a math teacher at a rural middle school on Shikoku island.
The official description states:
Fresh out of school with no ambitions, no money, and no talent for diplomacy, Botchan accepts a teaching post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and immediately regrets it. The students are savages. The headmaster is a windbag. His colleagues are a gallery of petty conspirators he can only keep straight by the nicknames he invents for them: Red Shirt, Clown, Porcupine, the Pale Squash. The only person in the world who believes in him is Kiyo, the old family servant back in Tokyo who still calls him “Botchan” (young master) and waits for him to come home.
Botchan has no filter, no patience, and no reverse gear. He says what he thinks, picks fights he can’t win, and keeps a running tally of every slight. He is also, beneath the bluster, deeply loyal, quietly heartbroken, and funnier than he knows.
If you’ve ever enjoyed a story about a principled hothead taking on petty bureaucracy and small-town absurdities, Botchan delivers in spades. Grab a copy and see why it’s still impossible to put down.”
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