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Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan

Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan 118 BOOK REVIEWS Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan, by Nanyan Guo, Tokyo, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2020, 232 pp., JPY 3000 (hardback), ISBN: 9784866581347 This monograph, originally published in Japanese (Kaku, 2018), marks (to my knowledge) the first broad attempt in English to probe the relationship between Catholicism and modern Japanese culture since the publication in 2011 of an important work bearing a similar title (Doak, 2011). In this sense, Guo’s book can be viewed as a continuation of the renowned Georgetown professor Kevin Doak’s efforts to convey to English-speaking readers the many intriguing ways Catholicism has helped shape and influence modern Japan. It is also of note that both Xavier’s Legacies and Making Xavier’s Dream Real argue for the enduring relevance of Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the first Christian missionary to Japan, when undertaking this task. Generally speaking, Guo successfully achieves her stated intention of “shed[ing] new light on how Christianity has been received and absorbed into the soil of Japan” (p. 8), and her book will surely be of deep interest to anyone engaged in the study of Japanese Christianity. It has a clear structure, and constitutes a lively http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Contemporary Japan Taylor & Francis

Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan

Hull, Simon
Contemporary Japan , Volume 34 (1): 4 – Jan 2, 2022
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Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan

Abstract

118 BOOK REVIEWS Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan, by Nanyan Guo, Tokyo, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2020, 232 pp., JPY 3000 (hardback), ISBN: 9784866581347 This monograph, originally published in Japanese (Kaku, 2018), marks (to my knowledge) the first broad attempt in English to probe the relationship between Catholicism and modern Japanese culture since the publication in 2011 of an important work bearing a...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2021 Simon Hull
ISSN
1869-2737
eISSN
1869-2729
DOI
10.1080/18692729.2020.1863054
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

118 BOOK REVIEWS Making Xavier’s dream real: Vernacular writings of catholic missionaries in modern Japan, by Nanyan Guo, Tokyo, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2020, 232 pp., JPY 3000 (hardback), ISBN: 9784866581347 This monograph, originally published in Japanese (Kaku, 2018), marks (to my knowledge) the first broad attempt in English to probe the relationship between Catholicism and modern Japanese culture since the publication in 2011 of an important work bearing a similar title (Doak, 2011). In this sense, Guo’s book can be viewed as a continuation of the renowned Georgetown professor Kevin Doak’s efforts to convey to English-speaking readers the many intriguing ways Catholicism has helped shape and influence modern Japan. It is also of note that both Xavier’s Legacies and Making Xavier’s Dream Real argue for the enduring relevance of Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the first Christian missionary to Japan, when undertaking this task. Generally speaking, Guo successfully achieves her stated intention of “shed[ing] new light on how Christianity has been received and absorbed into the soil of Japan” (p. 8), and her book will surely be of deep interest to anyone engaged in the study of Japanese Christianity. It has a clear structure, and constitutes a lively

Journal

Contemporary Japan – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2022

References