GajimaruClassics.
BotchanOn the coverYokosuka Shipyard, from Views of Famous Sights of Japan, Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1896
Botchan
A hot-headed, plain-speaking young Tokyo man takes a teaching post in a remote provincial town, and wages comic war on the scheming, hypocritical colleagues he nicknames after villains. A beloved, funny, fiercely honest short novel.
Character notes and context for the chapter you’ve read.
A short, hilarious, big-hearted comedy of an honest hothead against small-town hypocrisy, and the most purely enjoyable doorway into modern Japanese fiction. Everyone in Japan reads it; you will see why.
SettingMeiji-era Japan, 1900s
Meiji-era Japan, rapidly modernizing but still bound by hierarchy and face, where a blunt city youth collides with the pettiness and politeness of a backwater town.