SOURCE: "The Anguish of an Alien: Confessions of a Japanese Christian," in The Christian Century, Vol. 112, No. 34, November 22-29, 1995, pp. 1120-25.

[In the following review, Swain discusses Endo's Deep River and The Final Martyrs, paying particular attention to Endo's confessional style of exploring his doubts and his faith in his fiction.]

When World War II ended in 1945 there was not a single active Christian writer in Japan. By 1972, when the Christian Literature Society (Kyo Bun Kwan) began publishing its 18-volume anthology of contemporary Christian literature, there were over 20. Of the 12 novelists included in the series, seven are Catholic and five Protestant; of five playwrights, three are Catholic and two Protestant. The anthology was edited by novelists Rinzo Shiina, a Protestant, and Shusaku Endo, a Catholic who is undoubtedly the most popular and widely read Christian writer in Japan.

In a recent issue of Japan Christian Quarterly, Kaname Takado...