ENDO, Shusaku. The Sea and Poison. Trans. from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher. 1972. 8vo. First British Commonwealth edition. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Keith Cunningham. A near fine copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square. The textblock top edge gently dust-marked, else clean, the contents fine without stamps or inscriptions. The dust jacket unclipped with amended price sticker of £2.75 over printed price. Very gently crimped and slightly rubbed, but clean, bright and sharp overall.
The personal disintegration of a Japanese doctor who is obliged to participate in the vivisection of prisoners of war. Published in Japan in 1958, the novel won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and catapulted Endo into a leading voice in the continent. The protagonist toils with his role as an ambitious surgeon tasked with performing experiments on US airmen in the Second World War, Dr. Mengele-style. Though officially a practice for research purposes, the brutality he must exercise tarnishes his very soul as the catastrophic defeat that looms over Japan at the close of war brings a type of nihilism witnessed only in the very depravity of war.
ENDO, Shusaku. The Sea and Poison. Trans. from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher. 1972. 8vo. First British Commonwealth edition. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Keith Cunningham. A near fine copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square. The textblock top edge gently dust-marked, else clean, the contents fine without stamps or inscriptions. The dust jacket unclipped with amended price sticker of £2.75 over printed price. Very gently crimped and slightly rubbed, but clean, bright and sharp overall.
The personal disintegration of a Japanese doctor who is obliged to participate in the vivisection of prisoners of war. Published in Japan in 1958, the novel won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and catapulted Endo into a leading voice in the continent. The protagonist toils with his role as an ambitious surgeon tasked with performing experiments on US airmen in the Second World War, Dr. Mengele-style. Though officially a practice for research purposes, the brutality he must exercise tarnishes his very soul as the catastrophic defeat that looms over Japan at the close of war brings a type of nihilism witnessed only in the very depravity of war.
