Scandal

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.

"A remarkable work . . . Endo is one of the best novelists in the world."  —Spectator

"Endo is a great thriller writer . . . Spine-chilling, erotic, cruel, full of intellectual games . . . very powerful."  —Sunday Telegraph

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

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.