Portraits of a Mother: A Novella and Stories

From beloved Japanese author Shūsaku Endō, a newly discovered novella and five short stories of love, grief, and maternal longing. Shūsaku Endō (1923–1996), widely considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, is known for his historical novels, which masterfully probe the encounters between the cultures and religions of East and West. A lifelong Roman Catholic, Endō wrote frequently about the persecution of Japanese Christians, most famously in his novel Silence (1966). A salient and curious theme in his work is the unique image of a maternal God, and a concomitant sense of loss and longing for maternal love. “Confronting the Shadows,” his semiautobiographical novella discovered at the Endō Museum in Nagasaki in 2020, is the author’s most personal work and constitutes the interpretive key to his entire oeuvre. Translated into English here for the first time, it conjures the story of Suguro, an aspiring novelist who was separated from his mother after his parents’ divorce. Plagued with remorse and anger, desperate to understand the woman his mother was, he sets out to retrace her footsteps, only to find himself face to face with his own demons. Accompanying the novella are five stories; exploring complex truths in uncomplicated prose, each tale discloses the intricacies of the sacred feminine and the apprehensions and joys of familial love. Endō once again beams bright light on the hidden corners of the human heart in this intimate and remarkable new collection.