Scandal

by Shusaku Endo, Van C. Gessel (Translator)

Overview

Suguro is an eminent Catholic novelist who is about to receive a major literary award. When a drunk woman he has never met before approaches him at the award ceremony, claiming she knows him well from his regular visits to Tokyo’s red-light district, he assumes she must surely be mistaken. But with a scurrilous press campaign damaging Suguro’s reputation, his sleazy doppelgänger appears more and more, as if deliberately trying to discredit him. He is sighted touring the love hotels and brothels of Shinjuku; a leering portrait of him appears in an exhibition—and Suguro is forced to undertake a journey into Tokyo’s seedy heart in order to discover the dreadful truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780720612417
Publisher:	Owen, Peter Limited
Publication date:	04/01/2006
Series:	Peter Owen Modern Classic
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Shusaku Endo is widely regarded as one of the greatest Japanese authors of the late 20th century. He has won many major literary awards and was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. He is the author of Deep River, The Samurai, The Sea and Poison, Silence, and Wonderful Fool.

Editorial Reviews

"A subtle, eerie and fascinating book by a writer of rare perception and disquieting honesty." —London Evening Standard

From the Publisher

In this chilling, incisive study of the secret fears and obsessions of an aging writer, eminent Japanese author Endo examines the uncertain territory that lies between studying acts of violence and depravity and committing them. At 65, the writer Suguro is revered by his readership and most of his colleagues, although some accuse him of shying away from sex in his works and mock his rigorous sense of evil. His anticipation of a placid old age with his wife begins to crumble when a woman accuses him of pursuing a life at odds with his prose; she claims he frequents Tokyo's porn shops and bordellos. As he attempts to unravel the mystery of the accusation, prodded by a vindictive reporter who threatens to expose him, Suguro discovers that he has a double, a sinister alter ego who participates in brutal sadomasochistic encounters. But the more urgently he tries to clear his name, the farther he drifts from stability and peace. This provocative, impassioned meditation manages to explore not only the nature of identity, but also the regions of sin, salvation, art and religion, all with the unerring grace that defines a novelist in the fullest command of his craft. (August)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Released in 1986, this psychological thriller follows a novelist who must submerge himself in Tokyo's underworld in order to discover who is trying to discredit him and his work. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal