Shusaku endo biography of rory

During the chaos preceding Japan's surrender in World War II, Endo's studies were disrupted, and he, along with other students, was mobilized for forced labor at the Kawasaki military factory. Despite these challenges, Endo began intensive self-education under the influence of Yoshimitsu and his circle, turning his attention to books for the first time.

At Yoshimitsu's recommendation, Endo became acquainted with the works of the neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain. He also discovered poetry, particularly the works of Rainer Maria Rilke. Endo was deemed fit for military service by the conscription board but was ultimately exempted due to pleurisy discovered at the last moment, which granted him a deferment coinciding with the end of the war.

After the war, Endo's interest in French literature led him to pursue a degree in French literature at Keio University. During his first year, he formed a lifelong friendship with Sotaro Yasuoka, another aspiring writer, and reconciled with his father, returning to his family home. InEndo made his debut as an essayist with an article titled "Gods and God" published in the magazine Shiki.

This work attracted the attention of the prominent writer Kiyoshi Jinzai and was subsequently published in the renowned magazine "Mita Bungaku. It was followed by the completion of another novel, "Yellow Man," in the same year. These works marked a turning point in Endo's career, establishing him as one of the most significant writers of 20th-century Japan.

He then went to France and studied Catholic fiction at the University of Lyons from to The same year, he married Okada Junko, with whom he had a son in InEndo contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalized for two-and-a-half years, during which he underwent three surgeries and lost one of his lungs. Inhe and his family moved to Machida city, about 30 kilometers southwest from the center of Tokyo.

Inhe visited Israel and Americaand in he received a medal from the Vatican. Inhe became a member of a selection committee for the Akutagawa Prize the most prestigious literary award in Japan. From to Endo was the tenth president of Japanese P. Inhe was received the Order of Culture from the Japanese government. The same year, he was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage, and passed away on September 29, He was received in a friendly manner and was hosted by Anjiro's family.

Shortly before Christmas, he visited Kyoto but failed to meet with the Emperor.

Shusaku endo biography of rory: By Shusaku Endo. Shusaku Endo

He returned to Yamaguchi in Marchwhere he was permitted to preach by the daimyo of the province. The situation changed when Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan. Inhe banned the ruling class from converting to Catholicism because he was told that the missionaries were there to attempt the conquest of Japan. This "beautifully simple plot," wrote Updike, "harrowingly dramatizes immense theological issues.

Shusaku endo biography of rory: Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), born

Endo sought to illustrate Japan's hostility toward a Christ figure in another of his translated novels, Wonderful Fool. Set in modern times, this story centers on a Frenchman, Gaston Bonaparte. Gaston is a priest who longs to work with missionaries in Japan; after being defrocked, he travels there alone to act as a lay missionary. Completely trusting, pure-hearted, and incapable of harming anyone, Gaston is seen only as a bumbling fool by the Japanese.

At their hands he is "scorned, deceived, threatened, beaten and finally drowned in a swamp," reported Books Abroad contributor Kinya Tsuruta. Thus, the simple Frenchman has successfully sowed a seed of good will in the corrupting mud swamp, Endo's favorite metaphor for non-Christian Japan. Wonderful Fool was seen by some reviewers as Endo's condemnation of his country's values.

Louis Allen concurred in the Listener that Endo "is one of Japan's major comic writers. Ozu is an unsuccessful businessman who thinks nostalgically of his childhood in prewar Japan and his youthful romance with the lovely Aiko. Eiichi is a coldly ambitious surgeon who "despises his father—and his father's generation—as sentimentally humanist," explained Allen.

The parallel stories merge when Eiichi, in the hopes of furthering his career, decides to use experimental drugs on a terminal cancer patient—Ozu's former sweetheart, Aiko. Like Wonderful Fool, When I Whistle presents "an unflattering version of postwar Japan," noted Allen, adding that while Wonderful Fool is marked by its humor, "Sadness is the keynote [of When I Whistle ], and its symbol the changed Aiko: a delicate beauty, unhoused and brought to penury by war, and ultimately devoured by a disease which is merely a pretext for experiment by the new, predatory generation of young Japan.

Endo—to the point of obsession—are the concerns of both the sacred and secular realms: moral choice, moral responsibility…. When I Whistle is a seductively readable—and painful—account of these issues. Endo returned to the historical setting of Silence —the seventeenth century—with The Samurai. This novel—his most popular work among Japanese readers—is, like Silencebased on historical fact.

The samurai, Hasekura, is an unwitting pawn in his shogun's complex scheme to open trade routes to the West. Instructed to feign conversion to Christianity if it will help his cause, Hasekura does so out of loyalty to the shogun, although he actually finds Christ a repulsive figure. Unfortunately, by the time he returns to Japan five years later, political policy has been reversed, and he is treated as a state enemy for his "conversion.

Geoffry O'Brien judged The Samurai to be Endo's most successful novel, giving particular praise to its engrossing storyline and to the novelist's "tremendously lyrical sensory imagination" in a Village Voice review. Washington Post Book World contributor Noel Perrin agreed that The Samurai functions well as an adventure story but maintained that "Endo has done far more than write a historical novel about an early and odd encounter between East and West.

Taking the history of Hasekura's embassy as a mere base, he has written a really quite profound religious novel….

Shusaku endo biography of rory: The Places in Between

It is calm and understated and brilliantly told. Simple on the surface, complex underneath. Something like a fable from an old tapestry…. If you're interested in how East and West really met, forget Kipling. Read Endo. In ScandalEndo relates the self-referential story of Suguro, an aging Japanese-Catholic novelist who, upon receiving crowning accolades in a public ceremony, is accused of leading a double life in the brothels of Tokyo.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. July Learn how and when to remove this message. Museum [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Encyclopedia of literary translation into English: A-L. ISBN Retrieved November 17, It should". Washington Post. September 30, Case, Eric. Postgrad Med J. PMC PMID The Guardian. Retrieved June 25, September