![]() Throughout his life bouts of disease plagued him, and he spent two years in hospital at one point. He was considered a novelist not a university professor, however. In 1956, he was hired as an instructor at Sophia University, and Seijo University assigned him the role of "Lecturer on the Theory of the Novel" in 1967. They had one son, Ryūnosuke, born in 1956.Įndō lectured at at least two Tokyo universities. In 1954, a year after completing his studies in France, he won the Akutagawa Prize for Shiroi Hito (White Men). Upon his return to Japan, his success as a writer was almost immediate. His studies at the University of Lyon over the 1950–1953 period deepened his interest in and knowledge of modern French Catholic authors, who were to become a major influence on his own writing. Įndō was among the first Japanese university students to study in France. In 1968, he would later become chief editor of one of these, the prestigious Mita Bungaku. His studies were interrupted by the war, during which he worked in a munitions factory and also contributed to literary journals. Įndō first attended Waseda University for the stated purpose of studying medicine, but later decided to switch to the literature programme at Keio University. Some say this was brought on by his mother, who had converted to Catholicism after her divorce, while others state the aunt instigated the initiation. Endō was baptized as a Catholic at the age of 11 or 12 in the year 1934. When his parents divorced in 1933, Endō's mother brought him back to Japan to live with an aunt in Kobe. Soon after Endō was born in Tokyo in 1923, his family moved to Dairen, then part of the Kwantung Leased Territory in Manchuria. ![]() Together with Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Junzo Shono, Hiroyuki Agawa, Ayako Sono (also Catholic), and Shumon Miura, Endō is categorized as part of the " Third Generation" (that is, the third major group of Japanese writers who appeared after World War II). He was the laureate of several prestigious literary accolades, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Order of Culture, and was inducted into the Roman Catholic Order of St. Internationally, he is known for his 1966 historical fiction novel Silence, which was adapted into a 2016 film of the same name by director Martin Scorsese. As the priests are pursued from village to village, the novel meditates on man's eternal question: "Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on?" An Appendix presents the Diary of an Officer at the Christian Residence.Shūsaku Endō ( 遠藤 周作, Endō Shūsaku, March 27, 1923 – September 29, 1996) was a Japanese author who wrote from the rare perspective of a Japanese Catholic. Two young priests, Sebastiao Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe-once Ferreira’s pupils-are dispatched to Japan to search for their former mentor. Father Cristovao Ferreira, the Jesuit provincial, has disappeared and is rumored to have renounced God-that is, "apostatized." Christianity has been outlawed as a threat to Japanese culture and it is being burned out of the islands of Japan in the most brutal way possible. The narrative begins with a short Prologue: the Society of Jesus has received troubling reports from Japan. This second edition appeared with a notable endorsement on the front of the dust jacket-"In my opinion one of the finest novels of our time" (Graham Greene). Translated by William Johnston, the first edition in English appeared in 1969. Second edition in English of a Japanese convert's acclaimed novel of Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century Japan. Item #856 "NOW YOU ARE GOING TO PERFORM THE MOST PAINFUL ACT OF LOVE THAT HAS EVER BEEN PERFORMED" Early owner signature, closed tear to back panel, gentle crease to rear flap of clean, unclipped dust jacket. ![]() Octavo, black cloth, gray boards, original dust jacket. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1979. ![]()
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