Japan's Orient and Animal Theology in Endo Shusaku's Deep River

Abstract

This article reads the Japanese Catholic writer Endō Shūsaku's novel Deep River (1993) by focusing on its reenactment of Japan's Asian War (1930–1940) and postwar experiences as crystallized in human–animal relation stories. I retrieve the personal and intellectual ties between Endō and participants at the 1942 “Overcoming Modernity” symposium, namely Kamei Katsuichiro (1907–1966) and Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–1945). Critiquing the secular modern West, Kamei and Yoshimitsu embraced Buddhism and Catholicism, respectively, to pursue a distinctive cultural identity for Japan. However, Japan's military devastation in other parts of Asia constituted the historical burden Endō had to bear. Wrestling with the controversial heritage of his mentors, Endō conflated stories of Japan's Asian War and those of human–animal relations and proposed a theology of the sacrificial animal and animal salvation. This theology transgresses religious boundaries to critique Western as well as Japanese orientalism, colonialism and imperialism, and graces the fragility of our existence.