Archive > Natsume Soseki in The Japan Times

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916)

Over at the Japan Times, Damian Flanagan celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first publication of one of our titles, Natsume Soseki’s The Three-Cornered World, with a special feature. In the article, Flanagan explains how Alan Turney’s award-winning translation became the favourite book of pianist Glenn Gould, famed for his revolutionary interpretations of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

Damian Flanagan, who has also written the introduction to our latest edition of the book, describes how a copy of Turney’s “poetic, witty and stylish rendering of Soseki’s jewel-like prose” came into the hands of the eccentric pianist and how this ‘haiku-novel’ “would obsess him for the last 15 years of his life.” Damian is giving a talk at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in London on the fascinating connections between the artistic triad of J.S.Bach, Glenn Gould and Natsume Soseki . The seminar is on 12 March 2015 and you can find more details, including how to book, by clicking here: Daiwa Foundation.

In the meantime, you can read Damian Flanagan’s article in the Japan Times here: The three-cornered world of Glenn Gould and Natsume Soseki.

Natsume Soseki was described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘the greatest Japanese novelist of the modern period’, and Peter Owen publishes four of his works in translation. Find out more about Soseki and his books by clicking here: Books by Natsume Soseki