author
Paul M. Kanamori
1857–1945
A Japanese Christian minister and memoirist, he wrote with unusual candor about faith, doubt, and spiritual return. His best-known book turns a personal crisis into a direct, readable life story shaped by Meiji-era Japan and Protestant Christianity.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1857, Paul M. Kanamori—also known as Kanamori Michitomo and sometimes published as Kanamori Tsurin—was a Japanese Christian minister, evangelist, and writer. He came from Kumamoto and became part of the early generation of Japanese Protestants who embraced Christianity during the Meiji period.
He is best remembered by many readers for Kanamori's Life-Story: Told by Himself; How the Higher Criticism Wrecked a Japanese Christian—and How He Came Back (1921). In that autobiographical work, he reflects on conversion, theological doubt, and renewed belief in a personal, searching way that still feels immediate.
Kanamori died in 1945. Today, his writing stands out for its mix of memoir, testimony, and religious debate, offering a personal window into the struggles of Christian belief in modern Japan.