From the beginning of her career Miura Ayako, one of the most widely-read and popular Christian writers in Japan, was far from a “hidden” Christian. Openly declaring that her work as a writer was motivated by a desire to share the Gospel, her early novels Freezing Point and Shiokari Pass, and the autobiographical work, There is a Way, won for her a wide readership and sparked discussion in Japan on Christianity, the ideas of sin, faith, and redemption and the role of the Christian writer. A prolific writer throughout her career, Miura wrote in a variety of genres, including numerous essays, which directly address her own understanding of faith, and her final novel, Muzzle, is a saga that spans the entire Shōwa era and depicts one man's coming to faith after experiencing imprisonment and war. In all her works we see how Miura, and her characters, struggle with their own human weaknesses as they confront the meaning of belief, and its implications for their lives.

Introduction

Miura Ayako (1922–1999) made her literary debut in 1964, when her first novel Hyōten (Freezing Point*) was awarded first prize in a nationwide contest sponsored by the Asahi newspaper company. Winning out over 730 other entries, Miura, an unknown housewife in the Hokkaido city of Asahikawa, vaulted overnight from obscurity to literary stardom. Freezing Point marked the beginning of a long and successful career as a prolific and highly popular writer of novels, essays and biographies, with numerous TV and film adaptions of her better-known works, and over forty million in total sales (Kamide 2001, 117). Miura's success during the course of her career has sparked much debate over the relationship between “serious” and popular literature, and about the sometimes-intertwined role of religious faith and literature.

Unlike many other Christian writers in Japan, Miura Ayako has made it clear that her priority in writing was religious, rather than literary (Kamide 2001, 115–16). This arguably puts her in clear opposition to other Japanese Christian writers, such as Endō Shūsaku and Shimao Toshio, who see themselves more as writers first, and Christians second. As Miura puts it: