The Girl I Left Behind - Hardcover

An early novel written some thirty years ago, the Japanese writer Shusaku Endo's The Girl I Left Behind is now presented in the U.S. for the first time. Prefiguring themes of his later work, Endo here writes of choices made by young adults learning who they are and what they want in life. Yoshioka Tstomu is a student, not much interested in his studies, short on cash and long on sexual desire. Eventually he will settle down in a career and marry the boss's niece. Yet he won't be able to entirely set aside the memory of Mitsu, a plain, naive country girl he once took callous advantage of during his college days. The episode meant nothing to him at the time; to her it meant the world.

Shusaku Endo was born in Tokyo in 1923, and spent some of his childhood in Manchuria. A convert to Catholicism early in life, he graduated in French Literature from Keio University, and then studies for several years in Lyon. He is the leading contemporary Japanese writer: his award-winning fiction has been published in 28 countries and he has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and son, paying regular visits to Europe.