Samurai

In 1613, four low-ranking Japanese samurai, accompanied by a Spanish priest who was to act as interpreter, set sail for Mexico on an unprecedented mission to bargain for a Catholic crusade through Japan in exchange for Japanese trading rights with the west.

The chief envoy Samurai, Hasekura Rokuemon, is determined to please his feudal overlords.

The samurai for their part, have no choice in the matter but hope to gain favour by the success of their efforts.

The priest, Father Pedro Velasco is, however, ambitious and manipulative.

It is his zealous hope that he will become primate over all Japan.

They arrive in Spain to be amongst the first Japanese to set foot in Europe.

They travel to Rome and an audience with the Pope. They are baptised in the hope that this will gain the trust of the Europeans.

But when they return to Japan they find that the shogunate policy has reverted to isolationism and rigorous persecution of Christianity.

Their seven-year mission has been in vain; they are disgraced and duly sacrificed. For Hasekura, the most reluctant convert, his appalling suffering causes him to identify most truly with Christ on the cross, an effigy earlier reviled in his own spiritual journey.

An ambitious and powerful examination of fate and faith, THE SAMURAI is a novel based on historical fact that reveals how people react to events and how these events impact on their personalities and beliefs - or lack of them.