SOURCE: Yamagata, Kazumi. “Mr. Shusaku Endo Talks about His Life and Works as a Catholic Writer.” Chesterton Review 12, no. 4 (November 1986): 493-506.

In the following interview, Endō and Yamagata discuss Endō's Japanese-Christian upbringing and the unique perspective it gives his writing.

Shusaku Endo (1923-) is one of the foremost contemporary writers in Japan. He is also Chairman of the Japan PEN Club and a graduate of Keio University who specialised in French Literature. He has been a member of the Catholic Church since his childhood. In his school-days, he wrote an essay entitled “Gods and God” (1945), and after graduation, he published an essay entitled “The Problems of Catholic Writers.” In 1950, he received a scholarship and went over to Lyons, France, to study contemporary Catholic literature in France. He stayed in France for two years and a half. After returning to Japan, he began to write profusely; he published...