|
Translated from the Japanese by Francis Mathy
Gaston Bonaparte, a young Frenchman, visits Tokyo to stay
with his pen-friend Takamori. His appearance is a bitter disappointment
to his new friends and his behaviour causes them acute embarrassment.
He is a trusting person with a simple love for others and
continues to trust even after they have demonstrated deceit
and betrayal. He spends his time not sightseeing but making
friends with street children, stray dogs, prostitutes and
gangsters. Endo charts his misadventures with sharp irony,
satire and objectivity.
‘Endo to my mind is one of the finest living novelists.’
— Graham Greene
‘The Japanese writer who appeals most to an audience
outside Japan. Everything I have read of Endo’s is memorable.
He never disappoints.’ — Anthony Thwaite
‘Endo’s vision of Gaston as a Christ-like figure,
reincarnated in “mudswamp Japan”, is funny, exotic
and moving.’ — Sunday Times
Known as the ‘Japanese Graham Greene’ SHUSAKU
ENDO was born in Tokyo in 1923. Widely regarded as the most
distinguished of contemporary Japanese writers he won many
major literary prizes during his lifetime. His books, which
have been translated into twenty-eight languages, include
Silence, The Sea and Poison, Deep River,
Scandal and The Samurai. Short-listed for the
Nobel Prize on several occasions, he was elected to the Nihon
Geijutsuin, the Japanese Arts Academy in 1981 and was also
a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 1996. |
