By way of demonstrating [the] difficulties of Christianity in Japan, Endo has written a novel [Silence] based on the persecution by the Japanese in the 17th century of missionaries from Italy and Portugal, and of their native converts. The apostate Ferreira maintains that Christianity is wholly alien to the Japanese mind, and unable to grow there to maturity. 'The sapling I brought quickly decayed to its roots in this swamp,' he says. But there is an underlying theme that is even more important—the 'silence' of the title, 'the silence of God … the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish, God remains with folded arms, silent'….

Silence is an object-lesson to committed writers. Endo never sermonises. He has a strong, calm narrative style….