SILENCE (CHINMOKU)

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“One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . Flawless”

-- David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS

“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 *

Author: Shusaku Endo

Year: 1966

Buy it here: Amazon, Book Depository

Summary:

Seventeenth-century Japan: Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to a country hostile to their religion, where feudal lords force the faithful to publicly renounce their beliefs. Eventually captured and forced to watch their Japanese Christian brothers lay down their lives for their faith, the priests bear witness to unimaginable cruelties that test their own beliefs. Shusaku Endo is one of the most celebrated and well-known Japanese fiction writers of the twentieth century, and Silence is widely considered to be his great masterpiece.

Book description credit: Amazon