Sunday, December 28, 2008
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Ishimure Michiko and Bruce Allen (March 2008, Ishimure's home, Kumamoto)
translator
New translation of Ishimure Michiko's Lake of Heaven: "...a remarkable text of mythopoetic quality—with a noh flavor—that presents much of the ancient lore of Japan and the lore of the spirit world—and is in a way a kind of myth-drama, not a novel."—Gary Snyder,
Lake of Heaven
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The author and the translator
Ishimure Michiko and Bruce Allen (March 2008, Ishimure's home, Kumamoto)
Where to order:
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Bruce Allen’s translation of Lake of Heaven, published by Lexington Books (2008).
Bruce Allen’s translation of Lake of Heaven, published by Lexington Books (2008).
Ishimure Michiko- Author
Author Ishimure Michiko has often been referred to as the “Rachel Carson of Japan”. Her bestselling book Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow: Our Minamata Disease (Kugai jodo; waga minamata byo, 1972) alerted many Japanese to the dangers of industrial pollution and shaped the conscience of a generation of politically and environmentally aware writers and activists. Ishimure has gone on to develop the Minamata story into a trilogy. She has also written a wide range of poetry, essays, novels, and noh drama and is the recipient of several international literary prizes as well as Japan’s Asahi Prize and the Philippines’ Magsaysay Prize. She continues to be involved with the struggle for the rights of Minamata victims, and for the rights of other victims of prejudice and modernization. At the core of her writing and life work is the attempt to bring about a rebirth of the endangered “kotodama” - the spirit of language - that has been at the heart of traditional arts and culture in Japan and throughout the world. This blog introduces her work and presents an excerpt from her novel Lake of Heaven.
For more about Ishimure Michiko’s work and life
Bruce Allen
translator
Bruce Allen
Assistant Professor of English at Juntendo University in Japan. He writes about about environmental literature and has focused particularly on the work of Michiko Ishimure. His translation of her novel Lake of Heaven was published by Lexington Books in September of 2008.
Followers
Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan and Ishimure Michio
From Wikipedia:
Around this time two other pollution-related diseases were also grabbing headlines in Japan. Victims of Yokkaichi asthma and Itai-itai disease were forming citizens' groups and filed lawsuits against the polluting companies in September 1967 and March 1968 respectively. Collectively these diseases came to be known as the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan.
Slowly but surely the mood in Minamata and Japan as a whole was shifting. Minamata patients found the public gradually becoming more receptive and sympathetic as the decade wore on. This culminated in 1968 with the establishment in Minamata of the Citizens' Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures which was to become the chief citizens' support group to the Minamata patients. A founding member of the citizens' council was Michiko Ishimure, a local housewife and poet who later that year published Pure Land, Poisoned Sea: Our Minamata disease (苦海浄土―わが水俣病, Kugai Jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō?) a book of poetic essays that received national acclaim. More...
Around this time two other pollution-related diseases were also grabbing headlines in Japan. Victims of Yokkaichi asthma and Itai-itai disease were forming citizens' groups and filed lawsuits against the polluting companies in September 1967 and March 1968 respectively. Collectively these diseases came to be known as the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan.
Slowly but surely the mood in Minamata and Japan as a whole was shifting. Minamata patients found the public gradually becoming more receptive and sympathetic as the decade wore on. This culminated in 1968 with the establishment in Minamata of the Citizens' Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures which was to become the chief citizens' support group to the Minamata patients. A founding member of the citizens' council was Michiko Ishimure, a local housewife and poet who later that year published Pure Land, Poisoned Sea: Our Minamata disease (苦海浄土―わが水俣病, Kugai Jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō?) a book of poetic essays that received national acclaim. More...
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