Portraits of a Mother: A Novella and Stories

by Shūsaku Endō, Van C. Gessel (Translator), Caryl Phillips (Foreword)

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.

Genres: Japan, Novels, Japanese Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2025

About the author

Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953. A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity. Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize.
(from the backcover of Volcano).

Reviews

[Milena Angelova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find this book remarkable - as content, as language.

[Gabriela Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"With one single exception, there had been no mistakes or corrections in his father's life. What could possibly be the point for such a man to write anything?"

Reading this newly translated novella and 5 stories (the latest to be added to the list of books by the great Catholic writer Shusaku Endo) is an intimacy of an almost sacred kind. We peer through a glass darkly and find different poses and faces of Endo's remarkable mother, who emerges as the complicated, flawed, yet cherished heroine all throughout the autobiographical tales.

Like a theme with variations, the violin-playing independent woman who shapes the future novelist into being comes across as a force of nature, a gale whipping the pages into life.

"There is something higher, much, much higher... an asphalt-paved road is safe, so anyone can walk along it. There's no danger... but if a person turns and looks behind them, not a single one of their footsteps has been left on that safe road. A sandy beach by the ocean is difficult to walk along... but when you look behind you, every single one of your footsteps remains there...Please, whatever you do, don't live a worthless life by walking on an asphalt road."

For Endo, his mother is intricately tied up with his identity as a Catholic (not an easy religion to belong to, in wartime Japan). It's very poignant how he remembers his mother and his childhood priest in various points of his adult life.

But even if the reader were not Catholic, there is still much to relate to, in the universal struggle to form an independent self from a strong parental figure; in the burning quest to fulfill parental expectations after a parent's death.

And again, we see Endo at his excoriating best. For him, writing is his confessional, where he analyzes "the major rivers that have given shape to my life." He analyzes his weak deeds and thoughts, and in so doing, the book reflects the reader's own faults back to her.

Yet these faults are not irredeemable, as Endo constantly writes. And I suppose this is what makes Endo "Catholic," as he continues to find God in all things, even in the most wretched of men, even in the vilest and darkest night of the soul.

[Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not read any Endō for over a year, but I learned a couple months ago that Yale University press published a new collection this year. The novella in this collection, Confronting the Shadows, was discovered in 2020 among Endō’s papers! This is incredible given both his popularity in Japan and that he died in 1996. I wonder if there are any more stories hiding among his papers. Endō scholar and translator Van C. Gessel did the translation, and he also translated three previously published stories into English for the first time. My parents kindly gifted me the book for Christmas.

I had gotten to the point where Endō’s writing was wearing me out, and I didn’t want to read him anymore. I’m not sure what’s changed, but I really enjoyed this collection. All of these stories include several autobiographical elements, and I felt sensitive to the long sadnesses and deep wounds of his life. His was a fraught and graced life. The novella is very good, maybe worthy of 5 stars, and every story had a moment of startling clarity.

[Matt Finley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novella is an exciting new addition to Endo’s work—I feel that there are 2-3 stories he explores over and over again in all of the works that are published, and this is definitely something different. However, it was hard to read, because it (and the stories with it) are much, much more personal than anything else I’ve read, and somehow more sad and sorrowful even than Silence or The Samurai. Certainly worth your time.

[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But weren’t you forced to learn, some fifteen years later, that unexpected perils and danger spots like thin ice lurk within such strength, and that amidst such perils come the beginnings of true religion?”

[Aus10 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very beautiful book that's close to the author's heart with his thoughts and feelings. He really loved his Mother, but struggled with the past and her death, that you see he is trying to make sense of his feelings and thoughts. There are regrets , sadness and loneliness. Well worth the time to read. I have read three books by this author now. They are all top class. I'll definitely be reading more by him.