Chapter Inculturazione religiosa o risoluzione dialettica? Fukai kawa (1993) e il Cattolicesimo di Endō Shūsaku nel contesto letterario del Giappone del Novecento

Overview & Synopsis

Catholic author Endō Shūsaku (1923-1996) has gained worldwide acclaim for his novels and short stories that explore the conflicts between ethnicity, faith, and native Japanese religious sensibilities. A number of international scholars have interpreted his works as an effort towards religious inculturation and a search for a form of Christianity that resonates more harmoniously with the Japanese spiritual landscape. However, this article challenges such an interpretation, positing that Endō’s oeuvre primarily functions as a dialectical response to the prevailing discursive paradigms of the past, rather than being a conscious attempt at evangelisation. In particular, I argue that his final work, Fukai kawa (Deep River, 1993), stands as a tangible testament to his deliberate attempt to propose an all-encompassing religious pluralism capable of overcoming the binary divisions inherited from earlier literary debates.