To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

About the Authors

Sōseki Natsume (1867–1916) is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji period (1868–1914). After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1893, he taught high school before spending two years in England on a Japanese government scholarship. He returned to lecture in English literature at the university. Numerous nervous disorders forced him to give up teaching in 1908 and he became a full-time writer for the Asahi Shimbun. His nine major novels of which this was the sixth, thus appeared first in the columns of the Asahi. Today, Sōseki's novels still enjoy immense popularity in Japan, and contemporary Japanese writers continue to be affected by his work.

Sanford Goldstein, Professor Emeritus of Purdue University, USA, and Professor Emeritus of Keiwa College in Japan, holds a Ph.D from the University of Winconsin. He spent most of his working life at Purdue University, but also held positions at Niigata University and Nagasaki University. After his retirement from Purdue in 1992, he spent 11 years at Keiwa College. He is currently a visiting researcher at Keiwa Liberal Arts Research Institute. Professor Goldstein is a gifted tanka poet and founding editor of Five Lines Down, the influential American tanka magazine, and has had two recent anthologies dedicated to him. He has translated several classics of modem Japanese literature.

The late Professor Kingo Ochiai was a graduate of Tokyo University. He worked for many years at Niigata University in the Department of English, where he retired Professor Emeritus. While colleagues at Niigata, Goldstein and Ochiai collaborated on several translations, including The Wild Geese and To the Spring Equinox and Beyond.