Shūsaku Endō

He was the laureate of several prestigious literary accolades, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Order of Culture, and was inducted into the Roman Catholic Order of St. Sylvester by Pope Paul VI.

Together with Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Junzo Shono, Hiroyuki Agawa, Ayako Sono (also Catholic), and Shumon Miura, Endō is categorized as part of the "Third Generation" (that is, the third major group of Japanese writers to appear after World War II).

Biography Soon after Endō was born in Tokyo in 1923, his family moved to Dairen, then part of the Kwantung Leased Territory in Manchuria. When his parents divorced in 1933, Endō's mother brought him back to Japan to live with an aunt in Kobe. Endō was baptized as a Catholic at the age of 11 or 12 in 1934.

Endō was among the first Japanese university students to study in France. His studies at the University of Lyon over the 1950–1953 period deepened his interest in and knowledge of modern French Catholic authors, who were to become a major influence on his own writing.

Endō married Okada Junko born in 1956.

Endō lectured at at least two Tokyo universities. and had a lung removed. his oeuvre is strongly tied to Christianity. Endō has been called "a novelist whose work has been dominated by a single theme ... belief in Christianity". Thus, many of Endō's characters are allegories. and the award of an honorary degree from the Jesuit John Carroll University—the first the institution had ever bestowed upon an author. though Endō preferred to use the term instead of the more common . Some of his characters (many of whom are allegories) may reference non-Western religions. with whom he shared a mutual admiration: Greene himself labeled Endō one of the finest writers alive,

Partial list of works Published in the November 1954 issue of , a literary journal of Tokyo's Keio University. (Yellow Man) (1955): It is written with alternating points of view: the bulk of the story is written with a subjective, limited (but shifting) third-person view; three segments are told in first-person view. Inspired by true events, this novel was made into the 1986 movie The Sea and Poison. Directed by Kei Kumai, it stars Eiji Okuda and Ken Watanabe. (Wonderful Fool) (1959): The last of these was premiered in Vatican City on November 29, 2016, and was released in the United States on December 23, 2016. The Golden Country (1966): 1995 Order of Culture

Museum The , in Sotome, Nagasaki, is devoted to the writer's life and works.