Book Review: Silence by Shūsaku Endō 

Reviewed by Donovan Dougherty

Silence by Shūsaku Endō is one of the only pieces of literature to come from Japanese Catholics, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest twentieth-century fictional novels. Silence follows the story of an idealistic Portuguese priest, Sebastião Rodrigues, attempting to locate his mentor, Father Ferreria, after he was captured by the anti-christian Japanese government. Rodrigues watches as the innocent Japanese Christians are martyred to hide him, all for him to be betrayed and caught himself. Rodrigues comes face to face with his mentor, Ferreria, and slowly his faith in the Christ he was taught in Portugal withers away. Rodrigues learns that the glorious martyrdom that he read in the stories of the saints is not real, and instead he suffers from the pain, grief, and dishonor put on him by his captors. Christ’s silence to Rodrigues' suffering is deafening, and he will be forced to choose between his faith and the lives of others. The book was written by the Japanese author Shūsaku Endō who drew inspiration from the discrimination he faced in Japan as a Christian and in the West as a Japanese man following World War II. A film of the same name starring Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield was released in 2016 by Martin Scorcese to widespread acclaim. Silence is a novel that does not teach a universal lesson; instead, it brilliantly speaks to the inner struggle of its own author.