Kiku's Prayer

Kiku's Prayer first appeared as a newspaper serial in Asahi Shimbun between November 1980 and July 1981. An English translation was published in 2012, and the second novel, Sachiko, was released in English in August 2020. Both are set mainly in Nagasaki: the first in the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the early Meiji era (around 1868), and the latter in the years leading up to the atomic bombing of the city. Often called Japan’s Graham Greene, Shusaku Endo was also a Catholic and, like Greene, held paradoxical views on religious matters that he explored in his writing. With a different perspective on themes he examined in Silence, Kiku’s Prayer and Sachiko are historical novels centered on the persecution of Japan’s Christians.

Kiku’s Prayer is also a tragic love story, with gut-wrenching depictions of torture and self-sacrifice that Endo at times seems to prolong almost to the point of excess. Another compelling aspect of the novel is its portrayal of early foreign residents in Nagasaki—Chinese, Dutch, and French—including Bernard-Thadée Petitjean, as well as Western diplomats who pressured the Tokugawa and Meiji governments to end the centuries-old persecution of Kirishitan Japanese. The narrative arc, which spans from childhood to old age, is well constructed, with characters moving in and out of central roles over time. The persecutor Ito Seizaemon stands out as a particularly striking figure, both despicable and oddly pitiful. Overall, Kiku’s Prayer is a strong novel, and I look forward to reading Sachiko.