Paper short abstract:

Despite historians’ growing interest in historical fiction with its potential to make history more inclusive, some issues still remain. Given its fictionality, this paper discusses Endō Shūsaku and his historical novel Silence to consider the ethics of ‘giving voices to the voiceless’ in the past.

Paper long abstract:

‘Kirishitan documents say little about those who apostatised […] Of course, it is impossible to speak of countless unknown converts, but even the most representative apostates have been neglected. […] the weak were silenced by politicians or historians.’

Shusaku Endo, Kirishitan no Sato [Village of Christians] (Tokyo: Chuo Kouron Shinsha, 1974), pp.29-30.

Silence (1966), a novel written by Japanese Catholic author Endō Shūsaku, depicts the history of Christianity in seventeenth-century Japan, focussing on the lives of Portuguese Jesuit priestly apostates under the strict Christian persecution. While Silence has impacted the popular perception of the history of Christianity in Japan, it has tended to be criticised by historians for its historical inaccuracies or used as a ‘tool’ for examination of other topics such as martyrdom, as can be seen in Hirofumi Yamamoto’s work. Historical fiction, however, has gradually been gaining ‘authority’ as a research topic among historians for its ability to challenge the existing dominant history as well as provide a space for being progressive. Borrowing the argument of theorist Hayden White, ‘the practical past’ including historical fiction or the act of its creation, in contrast to ‘the historical past’ (academic history), goes beyond the argument of authenticity. This enables us to consider the significance of ‘the practical past’ among other historical narratives in public. Building upon the current historiographical turn towards analysing historical fiction as a form of public history, this paper analyses Endō as an agent of ‘the practical past’ who attempted to ‘give voices to the voiceless’, the forgotten apostates, and Silence as its production. Endō’s concern was the missing history of apostates, which he saw as veiled under the dominant and glorious narrative of martyrs. This motivated Endō to let apostates ‘live again from the ashes […] to hear their voices’ in Silence. Whilst Endō aimed to make history more inclusive by reviving the stories of marginalised people with no written record, his practice opens up a question: is ‘giving voices to the voiceless’ ethical? This paper examines the ownership of history and ‘recovery’ of marginalised voices as a crucial issue for public and academic historians today.