Contained in:
  • Il dono dell’airone
  • Edited by Luca Capponcelli, Diego Cucinelli, Chiara Ghidini, Matilde Mastrangelo, Rolando Minuti
Book Chapter

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

  • Massimiliano Tomasi

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.

  • Keywords:
  • Christianity,
  • Religious Pluralism,
  • Inculturation,
  • Christology,
  • Pantheism,
+ Show More

Massimiliano Tomasi

Western Washington University, United States

  1. Akutagawa, Ryūnosuke. 1978. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū. Vol. 9. Tokyo: Iwanami, 230-
  2. 56.
  3. Ascenso, Adelino. 2009. Transcultural Theodicy in the Fiction of Shūsaku Endō. Romam:
  4. Gregorian University Press.
  5. Boscaro, Adriana. 1981. “The Meaning of Christianity in the Works of Endō Shūsaku.” In
  6. Tradition in Modern Japan, a cura di P.G. O’Neill, 81-90. Tenterden, Kent: P. Norbury.
  7. Endō, Shūsaku. 1966. Chinmoku. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
  8. Endō, Shūsaku. 1978. A Life of Jesus. English translation by Richard A. Schuchert. Tokyo:
  9. Tuttle.
  10. Endō, Shūsaku. 1993. Fukai kawa. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
  11. Endō, Shūsaku. 2018. Endō Shūsaku zennikki: gekan (1962-93). Tokyo: Kawade shobō
  12. shinsha.
  13. Endō, Shūsaku. 2000. Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū. 15 volumi. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
  14. Gabriel, Philip. Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature. Honolulu:
  15. University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
  16. Gessel, Van C. “Voices in the Wilderness: Japanese Christian Authors.” Monumenta Nipponica
  17. 37: 4 (1982), 437-57.
  18. Gessel, Van. 1996. “The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Christian.” Journal of American-East
  19. Asian Relations 5:3/4, 361-74.
  20. Gessel, Van. 1999. “The Road to the River: The Fiction of Endō Shūsaku.” In Ōe and Beyond:
  21. Fiction in Contemporary Japan, a cura di Stephen Snyder and Philip Gabriel, 36-57. University of Hawai’i Press.
  22. Hinuma, Rintarō. “Ōoka Shōhei ni okeru kami no mondai.” Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kanshō 31:9
  23. (1966), 80-83.
  24. Kamiya, Mitsunobu. “Ishikawa Jun to kirisutokyō ni kansuru kanken.” Kirisutokyō bungaku kenkyū
  25. 29 (2012), 81-92.
  26. Mase-Hasegawa, Emi. 2008. Christ in Japanese Culture: Theological Themes in Shusaku Endo’s Literary Works. Leiden: Brill.
  27. Reisma, Luke M. 1999. “Shusaku Endo’s River of Life.” Christianity and Literature 48: 2, 195-
  28. 211.
  29. Tomasi, Massimiliano. 2018. The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors
  30. of Christianity. New York, Londra: Routledge.
  31. Tomasi, Massimiliano. “Christianity and Japanese Literature: The State of Scholarship in the
  32. Anglophone Academic Community.” Japanese Studies Around the World 2021: 36–44.
  33. Williams, Mark. 2012. “Crossing the Deep River: Endō Shūsaku and the Problem of Religious
  34. Pluralism.” In Xavier’s Legacies: Catholicism in Modern Japanese Culture, a cura di
  35. Kevin M. Doak, 115-33. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Pages: 191-202
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2024 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2024 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

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

Authors

Massimiliano Tomasi

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0422-4.19

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Il dono dell’airone

Book Subtitle

Scritti in onore di Ikuko Sagiyama

Editors

Luca Capponcelli, Diego Cucinelli, Chiara Ghidini, Matilde Mastrangelo, Rolando Minuti

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

390

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0422-4

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0421-7

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0422-4

Series Title

Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History

Series ISSN

2975-0393

Series E-ISSN

2975-0261

1

Fulltext
downloads

3

Views

Export Citation

1,339

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,191

Book Chapters

3,763,352

Fulltext
downloads

4,396

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

64

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,246

Referees

from 379 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations