Shusaku Endo

Shūsaku Endō was a Japanese author who wrote from the rare perspective of a Japanese Catholic. He was influenced by his experiences of living in France, where he studied modern French Catholic authors, and by his struggles with tuberculosis, which he contracted while studying abroad. He was also deeply interested in the history of Christianity in Japan, especially the persecution of Christians in the 17th century. His most famous novel, Silence, depicts the dilemma of a Portuguese missionary who is forced to choose between apostasy and martyrdom in feudal Japan. Endō's works often explore the themes of faith, culture, and identity, as well as the conflicts between Eastern and Western values. He was widely acclaimed as one of the most important Japanese writers of the 20th century, and received several prestigious awards, such as the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, the Order of Culture, and the Order of St. Sylvester. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times, but never won. He died in 1996 from complications of hepatitis at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo.