Foreign Studies is composed of three narratives linked by a common theme-the strong sense of alienation experienced by Japanese traveling abroad alone. Far from broadening horizons, each journey leads to a disconcerting confrontation with the traveler's own culturally imposed limitations. Based in part on the author's own experiences as a student in France after World War II, it is a novel of profound insight and chilling convicrion.
Shusaku Endo converted to Catholicism at rhe age of 11, and became onb of Japan's few notable Christian writers. Born in Tokyo in 1923, Endo read French Literature at Keio University, then studied in Lyon from 1950 to 1953 on a scholarship from the French government-one of the first Japanese to come to France after World War II. He holds honorary degrees from several American universities, and has received almost every major literary prize inJapan. Shusaku Endo died in 1996.