Martin Scorcese's "Silence," drawn from the eponymous novel by Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, paints a haunting fictional depiction of one of the grisliest persecutions of Christianity in human history. This little volume is the author's attempt to exhume some heroic episodes of that buried history and expose them, in the bright sunshine of truth, to all the world's eyes.

A bitterly jealous brother, a samurai who makes the ultimate sacrifice, a cold-hearted husband, a monk who mistakes desire for piety, a fraudulent merchant who meets his match in a supernatural river otter — the motives underlying these traditional Japanese folktale characters are explored with haunting results. Prompted by the sometimes illogical and perplexing actions of folktale characters (Why doesn’t the wolf kill Little Red Riding Hood right away?), master storyteller Rui Umezawa revisits eight popular Japanese folktales, delving beneath their sometimes baffling plot lines to highlight the psychological motivations behind the characters’ actions. In “Betrayal,” a treacherous husband poisons his wife so he can marry another woman. In “Paradise,” a young man saves the life of a sea turtle, who takes him to a luxurious underwater palace, where his every whim is fulfilled. A brother in “Rage” is consumed by jealousy when his brother’s dog digs up a cache of gold. In “Honor,” a samurai kills himself to keep a promise made to his blood brother. Tales of addiction, bravery, sex, greed, abuse and control — these stories take their inspiration from the great Japanese storytelling traditions, as well as from Noh and Kabuki. Sometimes laced with ironic humor, sometimes truly horrifying, these stories of the strange and supernatural will appeal to readers of all ages, but they particularly speak to teenagers. Evocative and haunting illustrations by the stunningly talented Mikiko Fujita add to the eerie beauty of this collection. A detailed afterword outlines the author’s storytelling approach and provides source material for each tale.

Royoko Mitsurugi, the Samurai Girl, is the top fighter and best student at Daimon High where martial arts is standard curriculum. When Shizuma Kusanagi transfers to the school, Royoko's top place is challenged.

When Saint Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima on August 15, 1549, he found a people thirsty for love and truth yet bound by stout cords of martial severity. This novel is the first in a series that will depict the rise of Christianity in early modern Japan and its suppression by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shoguns. In this first volume, we meet Saint Paul Miki and Saint Luís Ibaraki (among the 26 Martyrs of Japan), the Christian daimyos Arima Harunobu and Konishi Yukinaga, and the great warlord Shimazu Yoshihisa, as well as the immortal Saint Francis Xavier and his dauntless disciple, Lorenzo. There is history and heroism in these pages.

Passionate and promiscuous intellectual warriors - the "samurai" for whom "writing is the only lasting act of pleasure and war combined." Readers will instantly recognize finely sketched and often searing portraits of some of this century's most influential minds: Lacan, Derrida, Barthes, Althusser, and many others. With an authorial voice that modulates between the erotic and the meditative, the ironic and the rancorous, The Samurai moves from Paris to Mao's China.