"The heir to the magnificent English trading company, the Noble House--the direct descendant of the first Toranaga Shogun battling to usher his country into the modern age--a beautiful young French woman forever torn between ambition and desire--Their lives intertwine in an exotic land newly open to foreigners, gai-jin, torn apart by greed, idealism, and terrorism. Their passions mingle with monarchs and diplomats, assassins, courtesans and spies"--Amazon.com....

"Shusaku Endo's classic novel of enduring faith in dangerous times "Silence I regard as a masterpiece, a lucid and elegant drama."-The New York Times Book Review. Seventeenth-century Japan: Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to a country hostile to their religion, where feudal lords force the faithful to publicly renounce their beliefs. Eventually captured and forced to watch their Japanese Christian brothers lay down their lives for their faith,...