The Japan Society

Upcoming Events

ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Book Club: Deep River by Shusaku Endo

Monday 6 April 2020 / 7:00pm
ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Book Club: Deep River by Shusaku Endo

Date
Monday 6 April 2020
Time
7.00pm

Venue
The Japan Society

13 / 14 Cornwall Terrace
London NW1 4QP

Booking Details
Free for Japan Society Members

Book available from AbeBooksBook Depository and Amazon
Japanese version available here

Due to the current situation with COVID-19, this event will take place online. Places are limited and priority is given to regular attendees at the monthly meetings. If you are interested in joining, please email events@japansociety.org.uk.


The river is the Ganges, where a group of Japanese tourists converge: Isobe, grieving the death of the wife he ignored in life; Kiguchi, haunted by war-time memories of the Highway of Death in Burma; Numada, recovering from a critical illness; Mitsuko, a cynical woman struggling with inner emptiness; and, the butt of her cruel interest, Otsu, a failed seminarian for whom the figure on the cross is a god of many faces. In this novel, the renowned Japanese writer Shusaku Endo reaches his ultimate religious vision.

Shusaku Endo (1923-1996), 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 in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon from 1950 to 1953. Endo is often compared to Graham Greene; many of his characters struggle in some way with the Catholic faith, and all of them face complex moral dilemmas, their choices often producing tragic results. Endo was the recipient of many of the top Japanese literary awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Mainichi Cultural Prize, the Shincho Prize, and the Tanizaki Prize.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.