Botchan (master Darling)

Meet Botchan: a hot-blooded, stubborn Tokyo boy who thinks nothing of jumping off roofs to prove his courage or getting into fistfights over matters of pride. Raised by a stern father and a gentle mother who dies young, he drifts through school with little interest in books but a burning sense of justice that will not be quenched. When he takes a teaching position at a middle school in the remote mountains of Shikoku, he expects to find honest, simple people. Instead, he discovers a nest of hypocrites: scheming teachers, spineless administrators, and students who spend more energy pranking their instructors than studying mathematics. Botchan refuses to play the game. He speaks his mind, fights his battles openly, and earns both enemies and allies in the process. Soseki Natsume drew on his own year teaching in Matsuyama to craft this biting, hilarious portrait of a young man who won't compromise his principles even when the whole world seems stacked against him. A century later, Botchan remains the soul of youthful defiance, a reminder that integrity and stubbornness sometimes look exactly the same from the outside.