Shūsaku Endō

John Netland (Calvin College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.2.2: Japanese Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Mats Arne Karlsson (University of Sydney), Roy Anthony Starrs (University of Otago)

Dates

Born 27 Mar 1923
Died 29 Sep 1996
Activity 1955-1996

Places

Born in Japan
Active in Japan

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Endō's Works

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A popular and critically-acclaimed novelist, Shūsaku Endō was one of Japan's most-respected writers of the post-war era. While Endō was appreciated in Japan for his comic wit as much as his literary gravitas, he was better known in the West for his probing explorations of serious ethical, cultural, and religious concerns. As a Japanese Catholic writer – a rare combination in a society where polls perennially identify less than one percent of the population as Christian – Endō found rich inspiration for his fiction in the contested intersections of his religious and cultural identities.

Born in Tokyo in 1923, Endō was raised in Dairen, Manchuria – at that time a colony of Japan – where his father worked for a bank. Upon his parents' divorce, young Shūsaku accompanied his

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3360 words

Citation: Netland, John. "Shūsaku Endō". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 July 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11811, accessed 23 November 2024.]