Sanshir‪ō‬

Sanshirō (三四郎) is a 1908 Japanese novel by Natsume Sōseki, first serialized in the Asahi Shimbun (September–December 1908). It is the first novel in a trilogy followed by And Then (Sorekara, 1909) and The Gate (1910). The novel follows Sanshirō Ogawa, a 22-year-old from Kumamoto, Kyushu, who travels to Tokyo to study at the University of Tokyo. On the way he meets a mysterious woman in Nagoya and an older man who warns that Japan is rushing toward its own destruction—later revealed as Professor Hirota. In Tokyo, Sanshirō moves between three worlds: his rural home and mother, the intellectual world of professors and students, and his feelings for Mineko, the sister of a friend. A subplot involves Yojirō’s campaign to have Professor Hirota appointed to the university, which backfires. Sanshirō and Mineko are drawn to each other but both accept convention: she marries someone else, he is pressured to marry a local girl. The novel is a coming-of-age story set in Meiji-era Japan after the Russo-Japanese War, exploring modernization, Western influence, and the tension between personal desire and social expectation.