THE SAMURAI: A Novel
Harper & Row / Kodansha, 1982. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. SIGNED by Shusaku Endo and inscribed on the FFEP. First English-Language Edition, First Printing with complete number line. 272pp. Sewn binding in tan paper over boards backed in red cloth with gilt spine lettering. FINE in NF jacket. Exceedingly clean and sharp with tight binding and crisp, fresh pages; DJ with just a suggestion of toning around the extremities, very crisp and bright otherwise with $12.95 price intact. Published in 1980 to great acclaim in Japan, The Samurai won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize. In it, Endo returns to themes explored in his famous novel, Silence, namely the territory of the soul in the midst of cultural transformations in Japan's encounter with the West. Here the direction is reversed as Endo reimagines the experiences of the first Japanese to set foot on European soil. In 1613, a low-ranking samurai joins a imperial envoy to the Viceroy of Mexico and on to Rome to meet Pope Paul V. The Japanese emissaries travel in the company of an ambitious Franciscan Missionary with his sights set on the expansion of his order in Japan, hoping to bargain trading privileges for religous access. Fr. Velasco's ambitions are foiled by an abrupt shift to isolationism back in Japan. But in the process, Hasekura finds himself converted to this new faith, unable to shake it even after the coercive influences dissolve. In the process, Endo lays out 'a notion of Catholic Christianity is that it is, or ought to be, a religion of losers and victims.' (Julian Moynahan, NYT Review). NEAR FINE / FINE. Item #508308
Price: $500.00