Silence (Paperback)

Review
Endo's stark, strange theological novel looks back to 17th-century Japan to raise an enduring question: why does God remain with folded arms, silent in the face of human suffering? Telling the story of Fr Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit who follows his missionary vocation to Japan at a time of violent religious persecution, Silence is a compelling historical fiction, a potent distillation of the paradoxes and ambiguities of faith and, from a Christian author, a daring challenge to religious orthodoxy. --The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read

A remarkable work . . . sombre, delicate and startlingly empathetic. --John Updike, New Yorker

One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . Flawless. --David Mitchell

Product Description
Silence is the most important novel of the acclaimed Japanese author Shusaku Endo. A Japanese Catholic, Endo tells the story of two seventeenth-century missionaries attempting to shore up the oppressed Japanese Christian movement. Father Rodrigues has come to Japan to find the truth behind unthinkable rumours that his famous teacher Ferreira has renounced his faith. But after his arrival he discovers that the only way to help the brutally persecuted Christians may be to apostatize himself. This edition comes with a new foreword by Martin Scorsese.

About the Author
SHUSAKU ENDO is widely regarded as one of the greatest Japanese authors of the late twentieth century. Born in 1923, he won many major literary awards and was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. His novels, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages, include The Sea and Poison, Wonderful Fool, Deep River and Silence. He died in 1996.