SOURCE: “Salvation of the Weak: Endo Shusaku,” in his The Sting of Life: Four Contemporary Japanese Novelists, Columbia University Press, 1989, pp. 233–41, 243–49, 257–68, 280–81.

In the following excerpt, Gessel—who has translated many of Endo's novels and story collections into English—discusses the “moral idealism” of Endo's fiction, as exemplified in the stories: “Despicable Bastard,” “My Belongings,” “The Day Before,” and “Mothers.”

… The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. … But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

—1 Corinthians 1:25, 27

The role of the Christian writer in Japan has always been rather anomalous. Japan is widely recognized as a buffer zone between Eastern and Western civilizations, a conglomerate society that has joined the industrialized powers of Europe and America but...