All the salient qualities that distinguish the superb work of Japanese writer Shusaku Endo are on full display in this new collection of eleven stories written over the course of almost thirty years. The themes are akin to those in the author's novels (Silence and The Sea and Poison, for example): the martyrdom of Roman Catholics in Japan; coming to terms with old age - a compound of infirmity, fear, and pangs of nostalgia; the incongruity of Japanese travelers in Europe; spiritual doubt and sexual yearning; and, clearly, elements of autobiography, particularly of Endo's lonely boyhood unhappiness over the strife between his parents that ended in divorce. There is no other contemporary Japanese writer who has achieved such a balanced blend of things Western with those inherently Japanese. As John Updike comments in The New Yorker, Endo's work is "sombre, delicate, startlingly emphatic." It is also uniquely moving in its compassionate exploration of the human condition.
Author
Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953. A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity. Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize. (from the backcover of Volcano).
