Foreign Studies

"Elegantly divided into three sections, this ... calibrates the dislocation of Easterners transplanted to the West. "A Summer in Rouen," set shortly after WW II, follows the recipient of a church-sponsored scholarship that has brought him from Japan to France to study Christian literature... "Araki Thomas" tells of the first Japanese student in Rome, a Christian sent there at the dawn of the 17th century who...renounces his faith after he returns home, choosing survival for himself and for his people. The themes of these two sections are deepened in "And You, Too," in which an ambitious academic named Tanaka goes to Paris in the 1960s to become an authority on the Marquis de Sade... Tanaka feels as alienated as the hero of Rouen, "constantly experiencing the sense of distance between himself and a great foreign spirit..". Paradoxically, Endo transcends all cultural barriers; far from foreign, his work has the intimacy and the vastness of the universally true."--Publishers Weekly. "An accomplished piece of writing - as well as an instructive insight into Japanese reactions to Western religion, culture, and the tolls these reactions can exact... Endo's delineation of isolation, of feeling terribly and irrevocably foreign, is moving and effective ... A thoughtful and timely book."--Kirkus Reviews. "Everything Shusaku Endo writes is worth reading - as good literature ... but, more importantly, for his exploration of human nature."--New York Times.