'Serious, theologically-charged fiction of the highest quality: full, bleak, richly particular' - Kirkus Reviews

'Powerful... beautifully written... a fascinating narrative with its double perspective from East to West' - New Statesman

'Endo is really like no one else... as that rarity, a Japanese Catholic, he has found a border territory - of cultural and psychological clash - which is all his own' - The Observer

'A wry and sometimes bitter meditation on the nature of cultural values... Sensational events or powerful images are pictured rather than expressed, so that they come to resemble Japanese Haiku. It is because of Endos restraint that The Samurai is in the end so convincing' - Sunday Times

'Genius... makes the imagination take wing' - Mail on Sunday