Description

With an introduction by Martin Scorsese, director of the film starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver

Beneath the light of the candle I am sitting with my hands on my knees, staring in front of me. And I keep turning over in my mind the thought that I am at the end of the earth, in a place which you do not know and which your whole lives through you will never visit.

It is 1640 and Father Sebastian Rodrigues, an idealistic Jesuit priest, sets sail for Japan determined to help the brutally oppressed Christians there. He is also desperate to discover the truth about his former mentor, rumoured to have renounced his faith under torture. Rodrigues cannot believe the stories about a man he so revered, but as his journey takes him deeper into Japan and then into the hands of those who would crush his faith, he finds himself forced to make an impossible choice: whether to abandon his flock or his God.

The recipient of the 1966 Tanizaki Prize, Silence is Shusaku Endo’s most highly acclaimed work and has been called one of the twentieth century’s finest novels. As empathetic as it is powerful, it is an astonishing exploration of faith and suffering and an award-winning classic.

‘One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . flawless’ David Mitchell

‘A masterpiece. There can be no higher praise’ Daily Telegraph

Publisher Review

Silence is a compelling historical fiction, a potent distillation of the paradoxes and ambiguities of faith and, from a Christian author, a daring challenge to religious orthodoxy. -- 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read * Guardian * A marvellous book . . . Shusaku Endo is giving deep thought to the most basic problems of truth and how in exchanging it among ourselves we misconstruct its nature at every step * Spectator * Superb and harrowing - his masterpiece * Observer * A remarkable work . . . sombre, delicate and startlingly empathetic -- John Updike * New Yorker * One of the finest novels of our time -- Graham Greene This is a masterpiece. There can be no higher praise * Daily Telegraph * One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . Flawless -- David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS