Portraits of a Mother

Shūsaku Endō (1923–1996) was a renowned Japanese author. His many books include Silence, The Samurai, Deep River, and The Sea and Poison. Van C. Gessel is a professor in the department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. Caryl Phillips is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and playwright.

“Offers not only a fascinating insight into the mind of a religious outsider, but also more generally into the guilt associated with religious doubt.”—Christopher Corker, Asian Review of Books“Superbly rendered in English by Gessel. . . . This lost text provides a rather personal account of the writer’s youth and family, with his mother, a shadowy figure in many of his longer works, being brought into clearer focus.”—Tony Malone, Tony’s Reading List“Endō’s stories shift our focus from the self to the Mother—not just the individual woman, but all that she symbolizes: memory, origin, identity, and the Church. Suspended above time and above culture, this communion requires the contemplative gaze. This new collection from Endō invites us to sit, to stare, and to know.”—G. W. Currier, Englewood Review of Books“To pass by these stories, whether or not you’re an Endō aficionado, is to miss a chance to witness the concentrated force of his obsessions and sometimes harsh perspective. . . . With Endō, it’s all about religious faith, morality, and individual responsibility.”—Ron Slate, On the Seawall“There are moments where [this] book feels like one continuous novel, evidence of how well curated the stories in the book are. . . . Though this collection is unrelenting in its portrayal of how deeply parental wounds may affect a person, its vision is hopeful.”—Joy Marie Clarkson, PloughPraise for Shūsaku Endō:“[Endō is] a master of the interior monologue.”—New York Times Book Review“A writer of rare perception and disquieting honesty.”—Evening Standard“One of Japan’s greatest twentieth-century writers.”—Publishers Weekly“I think about Silence, and Endō’s work more generally, all the time.”―Phil Klay, author of Redeployment and Winner of the 2014 National Book Award“Endō is to my mind one of the finest living novelists.”―Graham Greene, author of The Power and the Glory“A masterly historical writer.”—David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas“[Confronting the Shadows is] not juvenilia from the start of Endō’s career, or a wistful late autumnal flourish. This is a writer working at the height of his powers.”—from the foreword by Caryl Phillips“Endō is a consummate writer who, as a master photographer, brings intense sentiment, character, and movement out of the subtle light and shadows that he focuses around his subject.”―Choice