With an introduction by Martin Scorsese director of the film starring Andrew Garfield & Adam Driver Beneath the light of the candle I am sitting with my hands on my knees staring in front of me & I keep turning over in my mind the thought that I am at the end of the earth in a place which you do not know & which your whole lives through you will never visit It is 1640 & Father Sebastian Rodrigues an idealistic Jesuit priest sets sale for Japan determined to help the brutally oppressed Christians there He is also desperate to discover the truth about his former mentor rumoured to have renounced his faith under torture Rodrigues cannot believe the stories about a man he so revered but as his journey takes him deeper into Japan & then into the hands of those who would crush his faith he finds himself forced to make an impossible choice whether to abandon his flock or his God The recipient of the 1966 Tanizaki Prize Silence is Shusaku Endo's most highly acclaimed work & has been called one of the twentieth century's finest novels As empathetic as it is powerful it is an astonishing exploration of faith & suffering & an award-winning classic ' One of the finest historical novels written by anyone anywhere flawless' David Mitchell'A masterpiece There can be no higher praise' Daily Telegraph