The Samurai

17th century Samurai travel to Rome on a diplomatic mission.  When they return home, the men, who have until now reviled their adoption of Christianity, begin to find it may be all that is left for them.

Publishers Weekly

A historical novel of early contacts between East and West from one of Japan's greatest 20th-century writers. (Apr.)

Shusaku Endo was born in Tokyo in 1923 and died in 1996. After his parents divorced, he and his mother converted to Catholicism—a faith which is central to many of his tales. He is widely regarded as Japan's leading writer and has won all his country's major literary prizes, including the Akutagawa, the Noma, the Shincho, and the Tanizaki.