|
|
Article: obituary : Shusaku Endo
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- October 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
Last year, one of Japan's best-known novelists, Shusaku Endo,
was to have received the Culture Prize from the hands of the
Emperor. But he was too ill to attend the ceremonies at the
Imperial Palace. The general public had been dismayed when the
Nobel Prize for Literature went to Kenzaburo Oe instead of the far
more popular Endo, and there were rumours that Endo's grievous
disappointment at not receiving the Nobel Prize had contributed to
a sudden decline in his already unstable health.
The writer had suffered from poor health all his life. Pleurisy
had kept him out of active service in the Pacific War, though he
had to slave on the assembly lines of a Kawasaki factory. He often
spent long ...