Silence (Shusaku Endo)

Last weekend I met someone who is coming into the Church this Easter. We were talking about interests and favorite authors. He mentioned Jesuits and Japan, so I threw out Shusaku Endo's novel Silence as a book he might like to read. I saw him two days later, and he said the book already arrived from Amazon and he was 30 pages into it. I saw him again two days after that, and he had finished it.

We started talking about the book, and I realized he was under the impression that I had read it (sometimes I recommend books I haven't read yet. I suppose that's a misleading habit). I bought the book two years ago while I was visiting Indiana, but it has remained dormant on my shelf since then.

Shusaku Endo was a Japanese author, born and raised Catholic in Japan. The novel is about Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in Japan during the brutal persecution of Catholics that led many to apostatize, even some missionaries themselves. (Almost every thing I've read about him as a novelist compares him to Graham Greene).

After our conversation, I took up the book, and I saw that Martin Scorsese has made a film from the novel, which he has apparently had in mind since the early 90s, set to be released at the end of this year.

Silence, a film adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel, to be released this year.

So, now I'm finally going to read Silence, and I'm looking forward to the film.