NOTA |
(★)(Titulo original : 口笛を吹くとき [Kuchibue o fuku toki], Translated by Van C. Gessel)(´When I Whistle´ is a rich and absorbing novel set in two contrasting worlds : the world of prewar Japan, and the contemporary world of a large hospital with its professional rivalries. Ozu, a middle-aged businessman, has a chance encounter that evokes haunting memories. As Ozu recaptures his past, the reader is caught in the spell of a simpler, more humane time. The stark counterbalance is his son Eichi, a young resident surgeon with an ambitious and materialistic obsession to depose his rivals. As the story unfolds, the past and the present gradually converge in a powerful and moving climax./ ◆Shusaku Endo [1923-1996] became a Roman Catholic at the age of eleven with the encouragement of his mother and an aunt. At Tokyo´s Keio University he majored in French literature, a subject he further studied from 1950 to 1953 at the University of Lyon in France on a Japanese government scholarship./ In Japan he won a series of outstanding literary awards : the Akutagawa Prize, the Mainichi Cultural Prize, the Shincho Prize, and the Tanizaki Prize. He also received honorary doctorates from various American universities./ His books have not only been translated into English but also into French, Russian, Swedish and other languages, bringing him great renown worldwide. Endo has often been called ´the Japanese Graham Greene´ for his fusing of the literary traditions of East and West.) |