Endo's Ethics: Stuck in the Middle with Who?

As Pacific Rim literature becomes a larger part of the curriculum in institutions of higher education, teachers are searching for toeholds into what may well be strange and even off-putting aesthetic devices employed in non-Western cultures. Writers like Shusaku Endo, with one foot in the Western world and one foot in the East, may serve as a bridge for us and our students. Situated against the seemingly odd aesthetic choices he makes in his Life of Christ, this exploration of Endo's moral manifestations in his popular novel, Silence , will show him to be an excellent introduction to the study of contemporary Japanese literature in translation. The ethical complications Endo explores are both frightening and familiar for Western readers, and his take on Christianity as it is currently practiced in Japan may be enlightening for us all.