Samurai, The (Peter Owen Modern Classic) - Softcover

Endo, Shusaku

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0720613531 ISBN 13: 9780720613537

Publisher: Peter Owen, 2010

Synopsis

A genuine classic in Japanese literature. Based on a true story this is the harrowing tale of four low-ranking samurai who set sail on an unprecedented mission: to bargain for a Catholic crusade through Japan in exchange for trading rights with the West. One of Endo's finest and most atmospheric works, The Samurai brilliantly conveys the shock of two alien civilisations meeting, the seedy undercurrents of 17th century Catholicism and the searing traumas of faith, both lost and newly discovered

About this title

Review:

A wry and sometimes bitter meditation on the nature of cultural values . . . Sensational events or powerful images are pictured rather than expressed, so that they come to resemble Japanese haiku. It is because of Endo s restraint that The Samurai is in the end so convincing. --Peter Ackroyd, Sunday Times

The kinds of shock experienced by the Samurai can be transposed into Endo's own coming to terms with the world outside Japan. He has been called the Japanese Graham Greene and indeed Greene is a great admirer. But Endo is really like no one else. --Anthony Thwaite, Observer

Genius . . . makes the imagination take wing. --Mail On Sunday

From the Back Cover:

The Samurai, without doubt one of the late Shusaku Endo's finest works, seamlessly combines historical fact with novelist's imaginings. Set in the period preceding the Christian persecutions in Japan, The Samurai traces the steps of some of the first Japanese to set foot on European soil. Rokuemon Hasekura, a low-ranking warrior, is chosen as one of Japan's envoys to the Viceroy of Mexico and Pope Paul V. The emissaries set sail in 1613, accompanied by an ambitious Franciscan missionary who hopes to bargain trading privileges with the West for the right to head his order in Japan. The arduous journey lasts four years, and the Japanese travel from Mexico to Rome, where they are persuaded that the success of their mission depends on their conversion willy-nilly to Christianity. In fact, the enterprise has been futile from the start and the mission returns to Japan where the political tides have shifted: the authorities are pursuing an isolationist policy and a ruthless stamping out of all Western influences. In the face of disillusionment and death, samurai Rokuemon's only support and solace come from the spiritual lord he is not even sure he believes in.

About this edition

• Publisher: Peter Owen
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0720613531
• ISBN 13: 9780720613537
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 272