(Translated by William Johnston. NY: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1980. 294 pp.)
 
Less than a century after St. Francis Xavier introduced Jesus Christ to the Japanese, the number of Christians in Nagasaki totalled hundreds of thousands. In response to isolated rebellions, Japanese leaders decided to expel the Christian religion from the island. The preferred methods included many exceptionally cruel methods of drowning, bleeding to death and beheadings.

These martyrdoms increased the faith of the Christians initially, until the cruelties were coordinated to force priests to apostasize by torturing peasant Christians in their stead. Fr. Christovao Ferreira, a Portuguese provincial of the Society of Jesus, apostasized in 1632. This event serves as the setting and the historical backdrop to Shusaku Endo’s masterpiece, Silence.