This powerful novel decribes the personal disintergration of a doctor is a obliged to participate of prisoner of war. He remains of personal feelings of horror and guilt.

In the final days of World War II, at a Japanese hospital, a group of doctors conducts cruel medical experiments on American prisoners of war. The novel follows a young doctor who, caught between institutional obedience and his moral conscience, is drawn into participating in these horrific acts. Shūsaku Endō explores ethical decay and the power of self-deception in contexts of authority and war.