I Am a Cat

Written over the course of 1904 through 1906, Soseki's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. The New Yorker called it "a nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action ..."

Set in

• ★
  Tokyo · Japan

  Meiji-era Tokyo neighborhood
  ★ primary
• ★
  Sendagi, Tokyo · Japan

  Meiji teacher household cat narrator
  ★ primary
• ★
  Former Residence of Natsume Sōseki (Cat House Site) · Japan

  House where Soseki wrote the novel, modeled as the narrator cat's home
  ★ primary