The Samurai

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

Japan, closed to the outer world since the dawn of history, sent out her first envoys to Europe and the New World at the beginning of the seventeenth century. For devious political reasons, a simple, unsophisticated samurai, a country man with absolutely no knowledge of or interest in trade or politics, is designated to lead the mission which is to bargain for trading privileges with Spain and with the Pope. Those who send him on his dangerous and unwelcome adventure are confident that he will be unable to accomplish the task they have set him: he is a sacrifice to political expediency.

This compelling novel, in which the lost history of an actual event of the distant past is reconstructed, is a triumph of its author’s historical imagination. First acclaimed in Japan, The Samurai, now translated for Western readers, is a work of quiet power and great beauty.