A murderer discovers his true nature from a talking infant, a samurai is frustrated in his attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories. The dream-like, open-ended tales by the father of Japanese modernist literature offer thought-provoking reflections on fear, death, and loneliness. Their settings range from the Meiji period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era in which the tales were written, to the prehistoric Age of the Gods; the twelfth-century Kamakura period, in which the samurai class emerged; and the remote future. A scholar of British literature, author Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of Ten Nights Dreaming, which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like Sōseki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This edition features an expert new English translation by Matt Treyvaud, who has translated the story "The Cat's Grave" for this work as well.

A murderer discovers his true nature, a samurai attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories by a noted Japanese author.

"Ten Nights' Dreams is a collection of ten short stories or dreams. Among the ten nights, the first, second, third, and fifth nights start with the same sentence, "This is the dream I dreamed." Each dream has a surrealistic atmosphere. Some are funny, and others are grotesquely weird. Did Soseki try to express what he actually dreamed? Or was his subconscious emerging spontaneously in the form of narrative dream?"--Page 4 of cover

In ten terrifying, intriguing and thrilling dreams, Natsume Soseki (1867 - 1916) treats leitmotifs and antipodes such as: loyalty and treatise, love and death, fame and immortality, social outsiders, honor and loss of face, desperation and hope. Natsume Soseki carries us off into his dreams and the old Japan comes to life once again. The Japanese original text "Yume yuja" was completely set up with furigana in this two-language edition, so that every student of the Japanese language can read Natsume Soseki's Ten nights of dreams fluently. The dreams are commented to provide background information to the reader.

Tree Of Dreams is a masterful collection, Newbery Honor author Laurence yet ascends the tree of dreams, taking young readers on a journey through its branches to offer a new perspective on dreams and dreaming.