SOURCE: A review of Foreign Studies, in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LVIII, March 1, 1990, p. 288.

[In the following review, the critic asserts that Endo's stories of isolation in Foreign Studies are universal to the problems of communication between different cultures.]

An accomplished piece of writing—as well as an instructive insight into Japanese reactions to Western religion, culture, and the tolls these reactions can exact.

European in setting, except for a brief interlude in Japan, the novel is divided into three complementary sections, which illustrate the theme rather than share any common narrative. In the first part, Kudo, a young Japanese student—a Christian—has come to France, just after the end of WW II, to study on a scholarship provided by the Far Eastern Mission of the Roman Catholic Church. Staying with a French Christian family, Kudo is aware not only of the great gulf between the two cultures...