The Sea and Poison: Shusaku Endo’s Prelude to Silence

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Shusaku Endo’s The Sea and Poison (1958) as a prelude to better understanding his novel Silence (1966). This particular novel shows how Endo was able to introduce Christian characters into the plot (without having to label them) and how these may not be what one would expect from a Japanese Catholic writer. The Sea and Poison was inspired by the experiments in human vivisection on American prisoners of war by Japanese authorities during World War II. In contrast to most critics of Endo’s work, who view it through a Christian lens, this chapter employs a non-religious perspective on this complex topic. In addition to vindicating Japanese cultural and ethical values, novels like Silence and The Samurai (Endo’s last published work, 1980) reveal much more about colonialism and, in a way, “coloniality” than about the persecution of Catholics in sixteenth-century Japan.