SOURCE: "In a State of Sin," in San Francisco Review, Vol. 19, Nos. 4 & 5, October/November, 1994, p. 40.

[In the following review, Garber discusses how Endo works out his themes of sinners struggling with morality in the form of a short story before developing them into a novel. Garber uses the short stories from Endo's collection The Final Martyrs to illustrate his point.]

Western morality is proscriptive, more concerned with what thou shalt not do than with what thou shouldst. In Japan things are different; morals are shaped by a sense of duty; honor and obligation take pride of precedence; and virtuous behavior has little to do with the dictates of those who claim to speak for God.

Therein lies the dilemma that haunts Shusako Endo, the most respected of living Japanese authors. Endo is a Roman Catholic, a devout member of a minority sect whose members were, until the 1870s...