The Samurai - Couverture souple

A wry and sometimes bitter meditation on the nature of cultural values . . . Sensational events or powerful images are pictured rather than expressed, so that they come to resemble Japanese haiku. It is because of Endo s restraint that The Samurai is in the end so convincing. --Peter Ackroyd, Sunday Times

The kinds of shock experienced by the Samurai can be transposed into Endo's own coming to terms with the world outside Japan. He has been called the Japanese Graham Greene and indeed Greene is a great admirer. But Endo is really like no one else. --Anthony Thwaite, Observer

Genius . . . makes the imagination take wing. --Mail On Sunday

A genuine classic in Japanese literature. Based on a true story this is the harrowing tale of four low-ranking samurai who set sail on an unprecedented mission: to bargain for a Catholic crusade through Japan in exchange for trading rights with the West. One of Endo’s finest and most atmospheric works, The Samurai brilliantly conveys the shock of two alien civilisations meeting, the seedy undercurrents of 17th century Catholicism and the searing traumas of faith, both lost and newly discovered