SOURCE: Mathy, Francis. “Shusaku Endo: Japanese Catholic Novelist.” In Catholics on Literature, edited by J. C. Whitehouse, pp. 69-77. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press, 1997.

In the following essay, originally published in The Month in 1987, Mathy discusses Endō's Catholicism and surveys his writing career.

Shusaku Endo's latest novel Scandal (1986) begins with Suguro, the hero of a number of Endo's semi-autobiographical novels and stories, about to receive still another literary prize. As he listens to a fellow novelist make the presentation speech, Suguro, now in his late sixties, reflects with great satisfaction upon his long career as a novelist. He feels that with this latest novel everything he had been aiming at all through the years has been achieved. His life and his writing have at last reached a point of harmony.

Now entering his sixty-fifth year, Endo himself must be feeling a similar satisfaction. In the first place...