Kokoro

Kokoro (こころ), meaning "heart" or "the heart of things," is a 1914 Japanese novel by Natsume Sōseki. It was first serialized in the Asahi Shimbun (April–August 1914) as Kokoro: Sensei no isho (Sensei's Testament) and is one of the best-selling novels in Japan. The novel has three parts. Parts I and II are narrated by a young man who befriends an older man called "Sensei" during university days in Kamakura. Part III is Sensei's long confessional letter, in which he reveals how he betrayed his friend K over a young woman, leading to K's suicide and years of guilt. Set against the end of the Meiji era and the death of Emperor Meiji, the novel explores loneliness, betrayal, guilt, and the tension between tradition and modernity. Sensei says that "loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves." The narrative moves from the narrator's bond with Sensei to his father's illness in the countryside, and finally to Sensei's testament and its aftermath.