TIME 100: AUGUST 23-30, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 7/8

Books That Shaped an Era THE HEART Soseki Natsume Japan has produced many literary "schools" this century, but Natsume was a school unto himself. His early works were humorous, his late ones heavy with life's pain. In between were two trilogies, concluding with Kokoro (The Heart, 1914), his best-known novel. Contemporary Ogai Mori is considered his artistic equal, but Natsume's popularity got him on the country's 10,000 yen bill, where he remains today. m o r e Rabindranath Tagore: People's Poet The eloquent Bengali wrote the song of a budding nation BREAKING THE TIES Nhat Linh This 1935 novel created a modern prose style for Vietnam--it is still widely read today--while also powerfully challenging the country's Confucian social traditions. Nhat Linh abandoned writing for politics with tragic results. Arrested for involvement in an alleged coup in 1963, he drank down a bottle of Johnny Walker scotch laced with poison. QUOTATIONS FROM MAO ZEDONG Mao Zedong No other book has had such a profound impact on so many people at the same time. Quotations was compiled at the start of the Cultural Revolution. Not only did it purport to explain Mao's doctrines: if you read it enough, it was supposed to change your brain. Hundreds of millions tried, and the crimes justified by its verses ended only after the Chairman died and his Cultural Revolution collapsed. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN Salman Rushdie This 1981 allegory, a jazzy blend of English and Indian vernaculars, gave a voice to an entire generation of novelists. Many were just mimics, and Rushdie is still under a death threat from radical Muslims for a later book. But writers in South Asia are enjoying another Rushdie legacy: huge advances from publishers looking for the next big India novel. BURU QUARTET Pramoedya Ananta Toer A saga of the first stirrings of Indonesian nationalism, this four-volume work of fiction was created in a penal colony on Buru island. But Pramoedya, a political prisoner denied paper and pen, couldn't write it down until his 1979 release from more than a decade in jail. President Suharto then imposed a ban--still in effect today--on Pramoedya's entire oeuvre.

The Most Influential Asians of the Century Asians of the Century A cavalcade of towering individuals and a newly awakened populace Why Adam Smith Would Love Asia Asia has been the proving ground for global capitalism Ending Silence Asian women are celebrating hard-won triumphs Viewpoint Embrace the wisdom of democracy and capitalism t h e  l i s t Hirohito Ho Chi Minh Pol Pot Issey Miyake Daisuke Inoue Rabindranath Tagore Sun Yat-sen Mohandas Gandhi Sukarno Mao Zedong Lee Kuan Yew Deng Xiaoping Corazon Aquino Park Chung Hee Eiji Toyoda King Rama Swaminathan Akira Kurosawa Dalai Lama Akio Morita