SOURCE: A review of Foreign Studies, in Christian Century, Vol. 107, No. 30, October 24, 1990, pp. 973–74.

In the following review of Foreign Studies, Allen discusses the alienation felt by Japanese intellectuals in the West, concluding that Endo's “true subject” is “the mystery of identity.”

The clash of cultures is an old theme of universal relevance. Shusaku Endo is a Japanese Roman Catholic who writes about the social and cultural distances between the East and the West. [Foreign Studies] is a collection of three stories first published in Japan in 1965 and now translated by Mark Williams. All three stories concern Japanese intellectuals who experience alienation in the West—a very personal theme for Endo, who studied for several years in Lyon, France.

In the first story, “A Summer in Rouen,” a young Japanese student named Kudo is invited to stay with a devout Roman Catholic family in the provincial town. It is...