The Last Samurai (novel)
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Chatto & Windus (2000)
 First edition | |
| Author | Helen DeWitt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Talk Miramax Books (2000) Chatto & Windus (2000) |
Publication date | September 2000 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 530 pp |
| ISBN | 0-7868-6668-3 |
| OCLC | 43391103 |
| 813/.6 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3554.E92945 S48 2000 |
The Last Samurai (2000) is the first novel by American writer Helen DeWitt. It follows a single mother and her young son, a child prodigy, who embarks on a quest to find his father. Despite selling well and garnering critical acclaim on publication, it was out of print for almost a decade; when reissued in 2016, it received renewed praise and accolades.
DeWitt had found the publication process to be a struggle: there were typesetting problems arising from her use of foreign text, an "accounting error" that led to her owing a publisher $75,000 when she thought they owed her $80,000, and a struggle with obtaining the rights for the book's original title, The Seven Samurai (a reference to the Akira Kurosawa film featured in the book), forcing her to change the title only to see it be used for a Hollywood film starring Tom Cruise.[1][2]
The Last Samurai is about the relationship between a single mother, Sibylla, and her son, Ludo, who live together in a small flat in London where Sibylla, an American immigrant, works as a freelance typist. From a young age Ludo proves to be gifted: he starts reading at two, reading Homer in the original Greek at three, and goes on to Hebrew, Japanese, Old Norse, Inuit, and advanced mathematics. As a substitute for a male influence in his upbringing, Sibylla plays him Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, which he comes to know by heart.
The next portion of the novel describes Ludo at age eleven, with no formal schooling and the only social interaction he has coming from his participation in a judo class in which his mother has enrolled him. After meeting his biological father, whom he deems undeserving due to his lack of genuine intellect, he devotes his time to the pursuit of various potential fathers. Ludo interacts with several adult male geniuses, testing each to see if they would make a good candidate to be his father.
