Shūsaku Endō

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Lore & Background

Soon after Endō was born in Tokyo in 1923, his family moved to Dairen, then part of the Kwantung Leased Territory in Manchuria. When his parents divorced in 1933, Endō's mother brought him back to Japan to live with an aunt in Kobe. Endō was baptized as a Catholic at the age of 11 or 12 in 1934. 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 first attended Waseda University for the stated purpose of studying medicine, but later decided to switch to the literature programme at Keio University. His studies were interrupted by the war, during which he worked in a munitions factory and also contributed to literary journals. In 1968, he would later become chief editor of one of these, the prestigious Mita Bungaku. Endō was among the first Japanese university students to study in France. 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. Upon his return to Japan, his success as a writer was almost immediate. In 1954, a year after completing his studies in France, he won the Akutagawa Prize for Shiroi Hito (White Men). Endō married Okada Junko in 1955. They had one son, Ryūnosuke, born in 1956. Endō lectured at at least two Tokyo universities. 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. He was considered a novelist not a university professor, however. Throughout his life bouts of disease plagued him, and he spent two years in hospital at one point. In 1952, while studying in France, he came down with pleurisy in Paris. A return visit in 1960 prompted another case of the same disease, and he stayed in hospital (in France and Japan) for the greater part of three years. Among other health problems, he contracted tuberculosis, underwent thoracoplasty, and had a lung removed. While he lost the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature to Kenzaburō Ōe, he received the Order of Culture the subsequent year. Endō died shortly thereafter from complications of hepatitis at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo on September 29, 1996.

Reader's Guide

Endō's oeuvre is strongly tied to Christianity. He has been called 'a novelist whose work has been dominated by a single theme ... belief in Christianity'. Others have said that he is 'almost by default ... [labeled] a "Japanese Catholic author" struggling to "plant the seeds of his adopted religion" in the "mudswamp" of Japan'. He often likened Japan to a swamp or fen. In the novel Silence, an official tells a priest who has apostatized, 'Father, it was not by us that you were defeated, but by this mudswamp, Japan.' Many of Endō's characters are allegories. Some Christian critics have looked askance at Endō's works—for example, as portraying historical Japanese Christian martyrs in too negative a light—but others have embraced him, with positive assessments in Catholic and Christian journals and the award of an honorary degree from the Jesuit John Carroll University—the first the institution had ever bestowed upon an author. His books reflect many of his childhood experiences, including the stigma of being an outsider, the experience of being a foreigner, the life of a hospital patient, and the struggle with tuberculosis. However, his books mainly deal with the moral fabric of life; most of his characters struggle with complex moral dilemmas, and their choices often produce mixed or tragic results. His Catholic faith can be seen at some level in all of his books, and it is often a central feature. His work is often compared to that of Graham Greene, with whom he shared a mutual admiration: Greene himself labeled Endō one of the finest writers alive, while it is reported that Endo would re-read Greene's novel The End of the Affair before beginning a new work of his own.

Did You Know?

• Endō was baptized as a Catholic at age 11 or 12 in 1934, either because his mother converted after her divorce or because his aunt instigated it.
• He studied at the University of Lyon from 1950 to 1953, one of the first Japanese university students to study in France.
• In 1954, a year after returning from France, he won the Akutagawa Prize for Shiroi Hito (White Men).
• He lost the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature to Kenzaburō Ōe, but received the Order of Culture the following year.
• Endō died from complications of hepatitis at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo on September 29, 1996.