The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 14 | Issue 13 | Number 6 | Article ID 4919 | Jul 01, 2016

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Ishimure Michiko and Global Ecocriticism

Karen Thornber

Introduction by Bruce Allen

Ishimure Michiko

Ishimure Michiko (1927-) is one of Japan’sleading literary writers and social critics. Herextensive work, comprising over 50 volumes,spans a wide range of genres including novels,poetry, plays, essays, children’s stories, andautobiographical writing. Ishimure is therecipient of numerous literary awards,internationally and in Japan, including theRamon Magsaysay Award from the Philippinesin 1973 and the Asahi Prize for literature in2001. A seventeen-volume critical edition of hercollected works in Japanese was published in2013.

Ishimure has often been referred to as the“Rachel Carson of Japan,” on the basis of herpioneering work that exposed the tragicincident of Minamata disease, caused byindustrial mercury pollution in the 1950s and60s . As in Carson’s S i lent Spr ing , acombination of hard-hitting factual reporting,along with exquisite literary narration, movedreaders’ hearts as well as minds and led to aworldwide awareness of the threat ofenvironmental pollution and the birth of theenvironmental movement. Ishimure hasfollowed up on Minamata events for more than40 years in her writing, including in herMinamata trilogy of novels, written in apioneering mixed genre style that bringstogether reportage and fictional writing, aswell as in her 2004 Noh play Shiranui .Ishimure’s life work has combined hercommitments to social activism and writing;striving for recognition, response, andreconciliation with regard to social andenvironmental problems.

Ishimure is the recipient of numerous literaryawards, internationally and in Japan, includingthe Ramon Magsaysay Award from thePhilippines in 1973 and the Asahi Prize forliterature in 2001. A seventeen-volume criticaledition of her collected works in Japanese waspublished in 2013.

The strong association of Ishimure’s work withMinamata events and her identification as the"Rachel Carson of Japan” has, however, beensomewhat of a mixed blessing, as it has playeda part in an unfortunate pigeonholing of herwriting as that of “merely” an environmentalwriter-activist. For some, there remains alingering prejudice—in Japan, as well as

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worldwide—that there is a contradictionbetween being an activist and a serious literarywriter.

The predominant identification of Ishimurewith her Minamata writ ings has alsoovershadowed the recognition of her extensivework in other themes and genres, such as thosedeveloped in her novel Tenko (Lake of Heaven,1997, trans. 2008), which deals with ecologicaland social changes related to dam construction,and in her historical novel Anima no tori (Birdsof Spirit, 1999, currently in translation), whichdeals with the Shimabara Uprising of 1638, inwhich some 37,000 Japanese peasants, mostlyChristians, were massacred. The predominantattention paid to Ishimure’s Minamata novelshas also limited the recognition of herextensive work in poetry, non-fiction essays,and other genres.

In the international community, recognition ofIshimure’s writing has been constrained by therather small number of her works translatedinto English. To date, Ishimure’s majortranslated works are three novels; Kugai jodo:Waga Minamatabyo (Paradise in the Sea ofSorrow: Our Minamata Disease, 1969, trans.1990 [translated by Karen Thornber as “Sea ofSuffering and the Pure Land”]), Tsubaki no umino ki (Story of the Sea of Camellias, 1976,trans. 1983), Tenko (Lake of Heaven), and hercontemporary Noh play Shiranui (2004, trans.2016).

In recent years, the international reception andevaluation of Ishimure’s work has beendeveloping steadily. Her work has been thesubject of numerous presentations atinternational literary conferences. The recentpublication of a collection of critical essays,Ishimure Michiko’s Writing in EcocriticalPerspective: Between Sea and Sky edited byBruce Allen and Yuki Masami (LexingtonBooks, 2016), is another step toward a widerrecognition of her work. The collection,containing essays by five Japanese and five

non-Japanese scholars, places Ishimure’s workin the context of world l iterature andecocritical analysis. It assesses the wide rangeof her work, including her activism andMinamata writings, while connecting this workto a wider consideration of the pioneeringnature of her literary fiction, especially inregard to her innovative use of local dialectsand her characteristic mythopoetic, non-linearnarrative style. Moreover, the collectionconsiders Ishimure’s contributions as a majorcontemporary social thinker. It also includesthe first English translation of Ishimure’scontemporary Noh play Shiranui; a centralwork in her literary career, which presents adistillation of her mythopoetic imagination andher stylistic and thematic concerns.

The following article, “Ishimure Michiko andGlobal Ecocriticism,” by Karen Thornber, is oneof the chapters from this collection. Thornber’spiece positions Ishimure’s work within thelarger context of world literature, while at thesame time challenging us to considerbroadening our conception of the meaning of“world literature.”

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Kawade Shobō Shinsha’s Sekai bungakuzenshū Complete Collection of WorldLiterature, 2007–], edited by the Japanesewriter Ikezawa Natsuki (1945–), currentlystands at thirty volumes. The twenty-eighthvolume, positioned between Joseph Conrad’s(1857-1924) Lord Jim (1900) and a collection ofmostly European short stories, containsIshimure Michiko’s trilogy on Minamatadisease: Kugai jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō [Seaof Suffering and the Pure Land: Our MinamataDisease, 1969], Kamigami no mura [Villages ofthe Gods, 1971], and Ten no uo [Fish ofHeaven, 1974]. With the exception of a shortstory by the Okinawan writer Medoruma Shun(1960–), Ishimure’s trilogy is the only work ofJapanese literature included in the CompleteCollection of World Literature. Her Minamatatri logy is advertised to readers as “amasterpiece representing postwar Japaneseliterature” that “deeply questions what it

means to be human.” Few would challenge thelatter claim, but the former might be moredifficult to corroborate: even if one were toagree that the trilogy is a “masterpiece” (whichdespite the trilogy’s great impact in Japanmany literary critics would not, given itsdocumentary nature and unconventional style),it is difficult to see it as “representing” postwarJapanese literature, if only because it differs insubject matter from much of this corpus.1Moreover, Ishimure has not received nearly theglobal attention of any number of contemporary(post-1945) Japanese writers, particularly theNobel prize winners Kawabata Yasunari(1899-1972) and Ōe Kenzaburō (1935–) and thefan favorite Murakami Haruki (1949–).

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Kawabata YasunariŌe KenzaburōMurakami Haruki

To be sure, Ishimure’s contributions werequickly recognized outside of Japan. In 1973,for instance, she received the RamonMagsaysay Award, sometimes referred to asthe Asian Nobel Prize, given annually since1957 to persons “who address issues of humandevelopment in Asia with courage andcreativity, and in doing so have madecontributions which have transformed theirsocieties for the better.”2 And many scholars ofliterature and the environment, regardless ofnationality, are familiar with the name IshimureMichiko. Papers on her work are regularlygiven at environmental literature conferencesin the United States and East Asia. Someoutside of Japan/Japanese studies, includingPatrick D. Murphy in Farther Afield in theStudy of Nature-Oriented Literature, havewritten on Ishimure.3 But very few outside

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Japan/Japanese studies have read much of heroeuvre . Th is i s because I sh imure ’swritings—with the exception of Tenko (Lake ofHeaven, 1997, trans. 2008), Sea of Suffering(trans. 1990), Tsubaki no umi no ki (Story ofthe Sea of Camellias, 1976, trans. 1983), andseveral short pieces—have not yet beentranslated: Sea of Suffering is available inJapanese, English, and German (Paradies imMeer der Qualen: Unsere Minamata-Krankheit,1995),4 and Lake of Heaven and Story of theSea of Camellias are available in Japanese andEnglish, but most of the other novels, poems,plays, and essays, which total more than fiftyvolumes, many of which are included in herseventeen-volume collected works (CompleteWorks of Ishimure Michiko; Ishimure Michikozenshū, 2004), remain untranslated. So in someways it seems incongruous to label her trilogy awork of “world literature,” when worldliterature recently has been understood as “allliterary works that circulate beyond theirculture of origin either in translation or in theiroriginal language . . . a work only has aneffective life as world literature whenever, andwherever, it is actively present in a literarysystem beyond that of its original culture”(Damrosch 4).5 On the other hand, Ishimure’swriting engages deeply with concerns thattranscend those of their source culture, andmuch can be gained by reading it as worldliterature, that is to say examining how itreaches beyond its points of origin and how itrelates to conditions worldwide. Indeed, one ofthe most effective means of increasing theglobal consciousness of literary studies isreading as world literature even those textsthat might not be works of world literature inthe conventional sense but that engage withimportant issues extending beyond singlecultures.6 And one of the greatest challengesfor environmental critics in the coming yearswill be further broadening linguistic,geographical, and thereby conceptual scopes,not only to understand better how varioussocieties have grappled with environmentalchallenges but also to gain increased

perspectives on the connections between localphenomena and those further afield.

Rachel Carson

Yet to date, although Ishimure has been calledthe “Japanese Rachel Carson,” the impact ofher work—unlike that of the American ecologistRachel Carson (1907-1964)—has been confinedprimarily to Japan.7 Sea of Suffering generallyis credited as one of the driving forces behindJapan’s social activism surrounding Minamataand other pollution diseases. To be sure, thenovel has been criticized for being “fiction” andfor not always adhering perfectly to the “truth.”But it is through this novel that the voices ofthose suffering from Minamata disease havebeen most powerfully heard—as the Japaneseliterature scholar Keiko Kanai has discussed,many Minamata activists have “cited [Sea ofSuffering] as seminal in motivating them to

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fight.” And some activists have stated explicitlythat “the characters in [Sea of Suffering] aremore real to them than the actual victims”(Making up for Minamata). This latterstatement might seem peculiar—charactersmore real than actual victims? But in turningactual victims into characters, writers oftenmake painful human experiences moreaccessible and in so doing promote and sustainengagement, most directly at home but alsoacross linguistic and national borders.8

Ishimure’s work has provided ecocriticsworldwide with a better understanding of howJapanese have grappled with their nation’senvironmental problems, a particularlyimportant contribution given the dearth ofJapanese environmental writing accessible tothose who cannot read the language. But therelevance of Ishimure’s narratives fartranscends Japan and its ecological challenges.Focusing on Sea of Suffering and Lake ofHeaven, the following pages reveal how thesenovels illuminate two of the greatest challengesfacing environmentalists, indeed societiesworldwide: the readiness with which even themost obvious environmental damage isdisavowed, particularly evident in Sea ofSuffering; and the limits of ecologicalresilience, an underlying concern of Lake ofHeaven. In so doing, this chapter brings to lightsome of Ishimure’s most s igni f icantcontributions to global ecocriticism. 9

Disavowals and Sea of Suffering

Many literary works that address human-induced environmental disruption portraydisavowing this damage—acquiescing to it bydenying responsibility for ecodegradationand/or knowing about but dismissing (potential)ecodegradation—as a common response to andfacilitator of compromised ecosystems. In sometexts, disavowal plays a central role: certainnarratives accentuate the extent to whichgovernments, corporations, citizens’ groups,and individuals wil l go to refute that

environmental degradation exists or, whenoverwhelming evidence to the contrary makessuch denial impossible, to reject responsibilityfor it, minimize its seriousness, and strive toexpunge it from public consciousness. As in theVietnamese writer Minh Chuyen’s (1948–) shortstory on Agent Orange “A Father and HisChildren” (2005) and the Indian-British writerIndra Sinha’s (1950–) novel on Bhopal Animal’sPeople (2007), Ishimure’s Sea of Sufferinghighlights this process. The novel shows thedisconnects between obvious physical evidence(nonhuman spaces that are clearly polluted;people who are unquestionably disfigured) andthe behaviors (disavowals, including bothactive denials and conscious indifference) ofmany in the Japanese government, the ChissoCorporation, and residents of Minamata andsurrounding towns.

Minamata, 1960

Although most creative texts concerned withdamage to environments acknowledgeindifference toward and denials of this damage,Sea of Suffering is one of a subset that stressesthe central role of these behaviors in causingand facilitating ecological degradation. More sothan many narratives, it also specifies thereasons behind such disavowals, as well astheir consequences. The novel devotes

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significant attention to alternatives, contrastingdenials of Minamata disease with the greatcompassion for the afflicted demonstrated notonly by the families and close friends ofMinamata patients but also by the Japanesemedical community and sometimes even bymembers of groups known primarily for theirdisavowals. Incorporating other instances ofindustrial pollution both in Japan and abroad,Ishimure’s text eloquently exposes denial ofenvironmental degradation as a nearly globalphenomenon, one endemic in human societies.On the other hand, the disavowals do not gounchallenged. Many individuals featured in Seaof Suffering, not to mention the narrator andthe novel itself, actively reject their validity.

Early in the novel the narrator cites Sensuke,an elderly man who succumbed to Minamatadisease, as having declared his a “disgraceful,unsightly illness” (水俣病のなんの、そげん見苦しか病気). The narrator claims that these termsdescribe not only the disease but also those“who caused this incident, concealed it,disregarded it, and tried to make people forgetabout it” (Ishimure 57). Most reprehensible,according to the narrator, is the ChissoCorporation. In 1959 scientists prepared areport indicating that Chisso’s daily dischargesof toxic, mercury-laden wastewater intoMinamata Bay were the likely cause ofMinamata disease. As the narrator describes, inJ u l y 1 9 5 9 t h e M i n a m a t a D i s e a s eComprehensive Research Group published anessay declaring that mercury in the fish andshellfish of Minamata Bay was the most likelycause of the disease; this report also points outthat Chisso discharged poisonous wastewaterinto the bay. Chisso immediately denied anyconnection between its wastewater and thedisease. The response of the corporation isunderstandable only insofar as Chisso was notthe only polluter of waters around Minamata.Sea of Suffering transcribes an articlepublished in the January 1, 1957 issue of theJournal of the Kumamoto Medical Society thatindicates a number of possible pollutants: “The

Minamata factory of a fertilizer company, theMinamata municipal slaughterhouse nearTsukinoura, the underwater springs in the Yudōarea, and in the Modō area the former navalammunition storehouse and antiaircraftencampment” (37).

Yet rather than cooperate in subsequentinvestigations, for many years Chisso dideverything it could to deny its role inpropagating this disease, including pumpingwastewater under cover of night andprohibiting scientists from taking samples fromthe bay for examination. The narrator describessome Chisso employees as sympathetic to theplight of Minamata patients, even alertingresidents of Minamata to Chisso’s plans todivert their wastewater channel to anotherlocation; similarly, researchers from the Chissocompany hospital contribute to efforts tounderstand the disease better. And at itsAugust 1967 meeting the Chisso First Unionissued a declaration condemning its own failureto fight Minamata disease and affirming itscommitment to do so in the future. But for themost part, Sea of Suffering paints Chisso as anabsolute villain; one that denies any connectionbetween factory wastewater and Minamatadisease yet prohibits scientists from studyingthe wastewater; one that does everything it canto avoid paying indemnities and insteadcontinues to discharge poisonous effluent, thusexpanding the number of people who maydemand compensation; and one that delaysdispatching employees to visit hospitalizedMinamata patients until 1965, more than adecade after the outbreak of the illness. Thenarrator comments: “Looked at from today’sperspective, the noble and strong personalityand the superior investigative research of Dr.Hosokawa [one of the premier researchers ofMinamata disease] into the outbreak andspread of Minamata disease provides afantastic contrast with all the attitudes [andbehav iors ] exh ib i ted by the Ch issoCorporation” (69). Throughout Sea of Sufferingthe narrator alternates references to Chisso’s

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heartlessness with those to the dedication ofmedical researchers. It often is difficult forMinamata doctors to understand their patients,since Minamata disease makes speech achallenge, but the novel portrays physicians asdoing whatever they can to assist thosesuffering from this disease. The narrator callsattention to the bonds that form betweendoctors and their patients and the trust thelatter have in their physicians, except whenthey believe they are being used solely tofurther a doctor’s career.

Acknowledging Minamata disease belatedly in1968 and only with great reluctance, theJapanese central government is described aslargely responsible for facilitating Chisso’sdisavowals. This contrasts with local politicalbodies, which although relatively ineffective,show considerable concern with the spread ofMinamata disease and establish variousinvestigative groups. Yet throughout Sea ofSuffering the narrator highlights the tragedy ofthis situation: the greater and more widespreadthe suffering of those affected physically oreconomically (fishers with no market for theircontaminated catch, or even with nothing tocatch), the greater and more persistent theefforts of those not affected, both Chisso andbystanders in the local population, to disregardtheir suffering. Commenting on the presumablydeliberate misperceptions of the local PublicHealth Department concerning Minamatadisease, the narrator notes that “the strangeillness continued to work its way steadily alongthe coast of the Shiranui Sea, moving from onevillage to another. The true nature of thestrange illness was not officially declared, butthe incidents and their ramifications slowlycontinued to tear apart people’s lives andhearts” (179). The narrator cites remarks byTanaka Minoru, head of the local Public HealthDepartment, downplaying the seriousness ofMinamata disease. Tanaka claims that his officeis working diligently to discover the cause ofthis disease, but he also stresses to members ofthe Minamata City Assembly that it is not

always fatal. He neglects to mention that forthose with severe cases, life might not alwaysbe preferable to death.

Sea of Suffering underscores how nationalpoliticians and other government employeesdownplay if not disavow Minamata disease. Tobe sure, the central government is depicted asinitially being concerned about the illness. Thenarrator notes that in 1957 the Ministry ofEducation established the Minamata DiseaseComprehensive Research Group, a unitcomposed primarily not of Chisso officials butinstead of presumably impartial doctors fromKumamoto University Medical School. Thegroup’s report identified organic mercury asthe most likely cause of the disease and pointedto Chisso’s practice of pouring untreatedwastewater into Minamata Bay. Despite thesefindings, the Japanese government for manyyears did not prohibit Chisso from continuingto discharge outflow, nor did it enact measuresto clean polluted waters or to help thosestricken with Minamata disease. Thesedisavowals of the significance of this illnessmarked the beginning of decades of frustratingstruggles by Minamata patients and theirfamilies, with both the central government andChisso.

As is true of Chisso officials, national politiciansand bureaucrats are depicted as disavowingMinamata disease for a variety of reasons:financial dependence of the town, region, andnation on industries like Chisso; inability toappreciate the suffering of Minamata diseasepatients and the significance of the damageinflicted on local ecosystems; and simpleheartlessness, including the belief that becauseMinamata disease affected such a small, rural,and impoverished segment of the Japanesepopulation it did not merit attention. Chisso, asthe “second-largest chemical complex in theworld,” was vital not only to the finances oftowns on the Shiranui Sea but also to thenational economy (Cumings 168).10 Japan’scentral government is particularly prone to

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disavowal. In his report on the MinamataDisease Policy Committee’s visit to Tokyo in1957, City Assemblyperson Hirota Sunaorecalls that officials in the Welfare Ministry notonly had never heard of Minamata but uponlearning that he disease affected mostlyindigent fishers, claimed it too trivial a matterto pursue. Those who listened to their petitiondid so only to be polite and were eager to seethem depart (79). The meeting in Minamatabetween Diet representatives and theMunicipal Assembly two years later (November2, 1959) was no more productive. The narratordescribes this encounter as resembling a“cross-examination” (76). Diet members takeadvantage of the recently elected mayor’sinexperience with politics and his relativeunfamiliarity with Minamata disease and itseffects on the town. The narrator laments:“Both the regional administration and the Dietwere supposed to be looking out for the people,but it was inevitable that the meeting betweenthe two sets of officials, with their differentagendas, would become a confrontationbetween the authority of the diet and thepowerless impoverished” (77).

The narrator speaks on several occasions of thenational government’s long history ofdisavowing industrial pollution, of its failure toconfront much less prevent such occurrences.She reminds readers of the Ashio copper mineincident (1880s) and how the rights of localfarmers near Ashio have yet to be recognized

nearly a century later, indemnities have yet tobe paid, and a commission has yet to beestablished to study Japan’s first modernpollution event. And she accuses the Japanesegovernment more generally as having a “policyof abandoning its people” (kono kuni no kiminseisaku) (234). In 1968, fifteen years after thefirst instances of Minamata disease and fouryears after the first cases of mercury poisoningin Niigata (Niigata Minamata disease)—theJapanese government at last declares Chissoentirely responsible for Minamata disease. Butthe narrator is quick to note that this admissionby no means resolves the struggles of thoseafflicted with the disease.

The most troubling disavowals of Minamatadisease come from residents of the Minamataarea who fear that acknowledging both theseverity of water pollution and Chisso’sculpability in instigating it will furtherdestabilize the region’s already precariouseconomy. Although a number of localgovernment bodies take the disease seriously,many individuals chastise Minamata patientsand other activists for threatening the welfareof their town. The narrator includes an articlefrom the October 19, 1968 Kumamoto editionof the Mainichi shinbun (Mainichi Newspaper)describing the Development of Minamata CityCitizens’ Conference. The conferenceprospectus chastens those residents who havebeen intent on having Chisso admit itswrongdoing and modify i ts behavior;conference participants support those afflictedby Minamata disease but insist on continuedcooperation with Chisso.

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Ishimure in sit-in protest at Ministry ofHealth, Labor and Welfare, 25 May 1970

Significantly, disavowals by Chisso, the centralgovernment, and residents of the Minamataarea forestall not only the prevention of furtheroutbreaks of the disease, compensation toMinamata patients and their families, andremediation of environments but also furtherprotests by Minamata activists. The narratoremphasizes what a difference it makes to betaken seriously by the authorities, not only inthe form of increased outside intervention(more government regulation of and sanctionsagainst polluters) but also in empowering theafflicted. One distressing example is a meetingwith Minamata fishers when Diet members visitthe town (November 2, 1959). The fishers aredelighted at the opportunity to share theirexperiences with the Japanese authorities, whotreat them with respect and listen solemnly asthey detail the crises facing their community.They are so emboldened by the compassionshown by Diet members that later that dayseveral thousand of them hold a protest rally atthe Chisso factory; the rally quickly turnsviolent, injuring several factory workers anddozens of fishers and police. The narratordeclares it unlikely that the principal cause ofthese riots, as often is argued, was the inabilityof union leaders to control their subordinates.Instead, she claims that “The real essence ofthe problem lay elsewhere. The situation

probably resulted from the fact that measuresto fight Minamata disease have until todaybeen almost entirely neglected . . . We can saythat responsibility for the inauspiciousincidents of November 2 lies with the lethargyof the authorities” (97-98). Had authorities atalmost every level not had a history ofdisavowing the seriousness of Minamatadisease, the meeting with Diet officials likelywould not have made as deep an impression onthe fishers and would not have inspired a riot.Yet the question is not whether the fishers willstorm the Chisso factory, but when. Had theirproblems been taken seriously by theauthorities from the outset, those physicallyand economically affected by Minamata diseasemight, as the narrator suggests, never have feltthe need to resort to violence. But there is alsoa strong possibility that they might havemarched on the factory sooner. Earlier activismcould have resulted in increased repression,but it also might have motivated the authoritiesto respond more quickly to the pollution of thewaters around Minamata, saving no smallnumber of lives.

Sea of Suffering exposes not only the terriblesuffering experienced by those stricken withMinamata disease but also the many political,social, and economic forces that, in denyingthis suffering, allow it to proliferate. Ishimure’snovel trenchantly reveals that even the mostobviously debilitating conditions—asphotojournalism such as W. Eugene Smith andAileen M. Smith’s Minamata: Words and Photos(1975) revealed, Minamata disease is anythingbut a silent killer—are repudiated in the nameof social stability and commercial profit.11

People are depicted not only as doing nothingwhen faced with ecodegradation but also asactively fighting against measures to remediateexisting damage and prevent future harm toenvironments. Even those with the strongestemotional bonds to the nonhuman areconcerned with environmental health almostentirely because of its connection with humanwell-being. In her afterword, the narrator of

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Sea of Suffering declares hers a “fragment of abook” (258). The novel is hardly a fragment.But one important question it raises yet leavesunanswered is whether, with disparitiesbetween conditions and behaviors so extreme,with even the most obviously debilitating andpainful disease so readily disavowed, there isany real hope of diminishing, much lesspreempting, environmental crises.

Much literature that addresses human damageof ecosystems portrays conflicts betweenhuman behaviors and environmentalconditions. Among the most striking arecreative works such as Ishimure’s Sea ofSuffering that depict people who accept and attimes encourage ecodegradation, even when itharms them and their loved ones. As is true ofSea of Suffering, many literary texts exposehow people behave when confronted withdamaged environments, particularly theirtendency to procrastinate, to grapple withproblems only when they become too large toignore, to assume that the nonhuman exists forhuman benefit, and to approve remediationonly if it does not in any way adversely affecthuman lives. Literature points to the nearinevitability of such reactions. These soberingnarratives invite us not only to ponder thecomplex motivations behind such behaviors andtheir frequently ambiguous implications butalso to think more deeply about the long-termconsequences of interacting with environmentsin this way.12

Disappearances and Lake of Heaven

A common trope in many literatures is tocontrast the relative resilience (endurance andrevivability) of nature, whether individualspecies or the nonhuman more generally, withthe ephemerality of people and their culturalartifacts. Numerous texts that establish thisdichotomy allude to or even highlightnonhuman endurance in the face of humantransformation of environments.13 Narrativesoften call attention to those parts of the

nonhuman that withstand or recuperate fromdamage imposed by people, and those thatexhibit resilience in the face of blizzards,typhoons, and shifting tectonic plates. Yet anynumber of these writings, despite their seemingoptimism about the prospects of the nonhuman,in fact leave ambiguous nature’s resilience.Ishimure’s Lake of Heaven [Tenko] (1997) is anexcellent example of this phenomenon.

Written three decades after Sea of Sufferingand in a nation and world of increasinglythreatened ecosystems, Lake of Heavendescribes the visit of Masahiko, a young Tokyocomposer, to what remains of his grandfatherMasahito’s hometown of Amazoko (lit. bottomof heaven), a village in Kyushu that thirty yearsearlier was buried under a lake created by adam. Amazoko is fictional, but it is modeledafter an actual Kyushu village—Mizukami,submerged by the Ichifusa Dam; this dam wasbuilt in 1960, to control flooding and generatepower along the Kuma River in KumamotoPrefecture. The Ichifusa and other dam projectsin the area have been controversial; protestssurrounding the Kawabegawa Dam (located onan upstream section of the Kuma River) havepostponed its completion for several decades.On the other hand, the Arase Dam, also locatedon the Kuma River, is currently in the processof being removed, in part because of oppositionto this dam from local residents, opposition thatwas inspired by Ishimure’s writings (Allen2010).14

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Lake of Heaven has rightly been described bythe American poet and environmental activistGary Snyder (1930 – ) and o thers asmythopoetical, incorporating as it does tales,dreams, myths, Noh drama, poetry, and song aswell as more straightforward narration (Lakexi). The novel speaks explicitly of the power ofwords, of kotodama (lit. word spirit), as “bornof the union [gattai] of things such as morninglight and the plants of the hills and fields”; thenovel calls residents of Amazoko “people in akind of ancient epic poem” (Amazoko nohitotachi wa sonna kodai jojishi no naka nohitotachi da) (Tenko 278). Ishimure’s textcelebrates rural peoples, the natural world inwhich they are enmeshed, and the power oflanguage used to evoke both.15 The novel’svivid, magnetic images captivate even its mostcasual readers, underscoring all that has andwill continue to be lost as nations reshapeecosystems ever more dramatically. But evenwhile questioning their future, Lake of Heavenalso highlights the incredible resilience of bothpeople and the natural world.

Ishimure’s narrator describes the villagers asquickly embracing Masahiko, who is deeplyimpressed both by their rich spiritual lives andby the healthy and abundant naturalwor ld—inc luding t rees , r ivers , andmountains—that physically and audiblypermeates their communities. Lake of Heavenvividly exposes the great traumas to both

people and nature that the dam has inflicted.But the novel also explores the ability ofecosystems to withstand human manipulation.People have irrevocably transformedAmazoko’s landscapes, and many of theimmediate changes are described as havingbeen quite painful. Yet the narrator gives littleindication that this landscape remainedravaged for long; in fact, it is repeatedlydescribed as a space of great harmony andbeauty, one that inspires Masahiko’s musicalcompositions. Even the novel’s title suggeststriumph over extensive human manipulation ofecosystems: the lake (tenko) behind the dam isone of heaven, not of hell. While condemningsignificant human shaping of environments,such as damming rivers, Lake of Heavenseemingly—likely without meaning to doso—highlights the relatively rapid recovery ofthe nonhuman in Japan’s rural areas.

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In contrast, cities have not fared so well;Ishimure’s novel sharply condemns the air andnoise pollution that plague Japan’s urbanspaces, depicting metropolitan ecosystems asfar worse off than those of rural areas. Thequestion l ies in just how much humaninterference landscapes can endure. Lake ofHeaven addresses two extremes of transformedecosystems: those that after an initial period ofadjustment regain their health and flourish(spaces, including the lake, that are barricadedby concrete, as well as the areas surroundingthese spaces) and those that because of thedensity of their human population areseemingly beyond repair (spaces, such ascities, that are covered in concrete). Becausethe dam and new lake constantly exemplifyhuman transformation of environments, thenarrator and characters of Lake of Heavenharbor no fantasies that rural Japan has beenleft untouched. More confusing is how muchlonger rural Japan, or at least that part of itclosest to the nation’s expanding metropolitanareas, will be able to withstand such large-scalehuman projects.

Ishimure’s novel emphasizes the high humancost of inundating Amazoko. Not only did mostvillagers lose their homes, but gambling andfinancial mismanagement followed on the heelsof dam construction with money designated forrelocation falling into the wrong hands andimpoverishing many. More significant, the deepattachment and sense of loss many formerresidents, including Masahiko’s grandfather,feel toward the “village at the bottom of thelake” do not erode with time; for some thememories are an obsession and constant sourceof grief. Visiting this lake, Masahiko issurprised to find that he too is moved: “All theplaces about which his grandfather had toldhim—the Hall of Kannon, the monkey-seat rock,Oki no Miya—where were they submerged?Trees, scattered here and there, were the onlythings visible at the bottom of the water; theonly thing he understood was that there wasthe site of the village. His heart was attacked

by a crushing sensation. He hadn’t expected tofeel this way” (27).

Much of the nonhuman also has recovered fromthe traumas inflicted on this landscape. Lake ofHeaven highlights the devastation caused bythe dam: the narrative includes numerousgraphic descriptions of the mercilesssubmerging of everything from grand andbeloved trees to small and helpless insects:

All the flowering clover, theChinese milk vetch, and theinnumerable sweet flowerings ofviolets that grew along the ravinesand ridges of the field—everythingwas f looded together. For amoment, even when in the water,the scene looked as though it wereone of living vegetation. What mostsurprised everyone was the varietyof insects, creatures that usuallywere over looked , f loat ingeverywhere on the surface of thewater. Ants large and small,molting light-green dreamy smallbutterflies, with their wings,thinner than paper, torn apartwere floating. Mole crickets wereswimming, l izards too wereswimming. Even tiny baby birdsthat appeared as though they’djust hatched were floating in theirnests . . . Together with theinsects, which seemed as thoughthey were burning in hell, thevillagers felt as though they toowere being exterminated beforet h e y e v e n k n e w w h a t w a shappening (307-8, 310).

Ishimure’s narrator vividly describes thepainful physical mutilation of insects’ bodies.The seemingly thoughtless flooding of theirecosystems is contrasted with the villagers’more respectful plowing of the land. As Oshizu

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reminisces:

When they started letting in water,around the time that Sōsuke’s fieldo f Ch inese mi lk ve tch wassubmerged, inordinate numbers ofgreen caterpillars and molecrickets bubbled up from beneaththe grass. Everyone gasped whenthey saw this. The insects werefloating, covering the surface ofthe water, choking us up. I’venever forgotten that scene. Oh,just think, when we built thesefields, we held proper memorialservices for the insects.

There is a stone monument on the hill in thecemetery with the words “memorial for the soulof the ten thousand beings.” By “ten thousandbeings” they didn’t mean just people. The stonemonument on the hill dedicated to the tenthousand beings was meant not just for theinsects and the birds; it was also for the soulsof things we can’t see, things that protect thevillage. Our ancestors built it for this reason(114).16

Oshizu reveals not only her own conflictingattitudes, condoning the killing of flora andfauna for agriculture while condemning theirkilling for the sake of a dam that likewise aimsto make human lives more comfortable. Shealso exposes contradictions between theattitudes and behaviors of her predecessors,namely the conflict between their killing andhonoring a vast array of nonhuman beings. Thisrural landscape has a long history of a humanhabitation and manipulation—not only havelocal peoples long been farming here, but wellbefore the dam was built, forest fires and aFrench lumber mill polluted the region andtriggered landslides. But the dam causedunprecedented damage.

Even so, thirty years after the dam was built

the ecosystems Masahiko encounters show fewif any signs of degradation. Looking at the lakefor the first time, Masahiko notes that, far frombeing a polluted cesspool, “the submergedvillage has been made into a gathering placefor fish” (24). The water is clear and peaceful,so much so that some residents seem to believethat “this manmade lake, constructed takingfull advantage of modern technology, was like atransparent cocoon that contained within it thechrysalis and silkworms that the sleepingancient village had become” (78). Andsurrounding the lake the soil is rich andfragrant, the foliage luxurious, the air filledwith birdsong, and the mountains magical.Masahiko and the narrator can barely containtheir excitement. The region is occasionallyafflicted by droughts, but these are infrequent,do not seem to be human-induced, and do notcause lasting damage.17

In fact, much greater than the differencebetween the pre- and post-constructionlandscapes is the gap between rural and urbanareas, a dynamic often overlooked in criticaldiscussions of Lake of Heaven , whichunderstandably focus on the disruption to rurallives, both human and nonhuman. The narratorand Masahiko frequently contrast rural andurban sites, almost always to the detriment ofthe latter. Masahiko is particularly captivatedby the sounds heard in the mountains and inwhat remains of Amazoko. Listening to thewinds along the shore of the lake,

All the cacophony [騒音] of thatfrenzied city [狂暴な都市; i.e.,Tokyo] vanished [消えていた] fromaround him. The grating noises ofcars [車の擦過音], the sound ofbrakes [ブレーキの音], the noisesof shutters opening and closing[シャッターの開閉音] that hadeaten down to the marrow of hisbones . S t ree t no i ses [街の音]—things constantly being torn

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up and smashed down—had allvanished [消えていた]. What kindof world was that? Could it be thatI’ve been carried off by the energyof the cacophony [騒音] of thatgiant city [巨大都市; i.e., Tokyo]and made a soft landing here? (29).

Noteworthy is not only the jarring racket ofTokyo—the narrator repeating the character for“noise” (音) six times in four lines—itsomnipresence and omnipotence, its ability toinfiltrate the skin and, as is true of thechemicals Ishimure describes in Sea ofSuffering, eat down to the marrow of the bones(hone no zui made kuiitteita). Also striking isthe healing power of the landscape: thenarrator describes not so much the presence ofthese sounds within Masahiko’s body as theirabsence. They once had penetrated the verycore of his body, but they have s incedisappeared, the narrator concluding the firsttwo sentences translated above with the verb“vanished” (消えていた). Later in the novel thenarrator again remarks on how the sounds oftrains and trucks would interrupt conversationsin the city between Masahiko and hisgrandfather, and on the sharp disparitybetween the forest of thriving Andromeda treesnot far from the buried village and Masahiko’sown tiny potted Andromeda, covered in soot,that wilted not long after his grandfather’sdeath. Tokyo is so cacophonous, Masahikoreflects, that the cries of roosters are audibleonly in zoos. Not long after arriving in thevillage he comes to think of the “breaking,rapidly swelling Tokyo as a giant cancer cell”(78).

The ground on which Tokyo is built and the airabove the city are not the only spacesimplicated. Nearly all of Japan appears at risk.The narrator comments that the Japaneseislands have become “a conveyor belt carryingconcrete scabs, all covered with swarms ofshuddering vehicles” (260). Complaining that

people do their best to disregard the machinesremoving the very earth that once nurturedthem, the narrator asks, “Doesn’t it seem asthough a giant, invisible hand is stretching outand grasping the epidermis, or rather even thedermis beneath it, of the densely populatedarea of this archipelago, and peeling it away?”(75). The ecosystems around the formerAmazoko have thus far been relatively spared.In fact, in the first chapter—unlike in the Sea ofSuffering where the narrator declares that a“deep, fissure-like pathway . . . ran the lengthof the Japanese archipelago” (218)—Masahikodeclares that except for the dam this region has“no straight line of human construction” (79).But the dramatic image of hands grasping theepidermis of the Japanese islands ready to peelit away indicates that environmentaldevastation is hardly confined to a few selectspaces. New roads are gradually infiltratingareas around Amazoko, and although they sofar have successfully blended into themountainsides, and their vibrations have stayedin tune with those of the earth’s skin, at least inMasahiko’s interpretation, there soon will comea time when these roads are no longer soinconspicuous. Interestingly, Masahiko initiallyhad been disturbed that the land was gashed tobuild the new road, but now he believes thesechanges nicely complement those the terraininflicts on itself in the form of volcanoes,shifting land masses, and the like (276).Needless to say, it is such changes inattitude—from being troubled by the humanreshaping of the mountainside to believingsuch transformations complement millions ofyears of nonhuman upheaval—that allow fori n c r e a s e d h u m a n m a n i p u l a t i o n o fenvironments. The elaborate discussion of thegeological history of the region suggests thatMasahiko and the narrator feel somewhatuneasy about justifying human activity in thismanner. Although Lake of Heaven in manyplaces highlights the parallels between the pre-and post-construction landscapes andunderlines the differences between Japan’scities and its mountain regions, the novel also

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makes clear that the latter are in jeopardy.These landscapes have for the most partwithstood and overcome the changes peopleinflict, but Ishimure’s novel suggests thatenvironments will not be able to do so forever,at least not in a form that can readily sustainhuman existence.

Karen Tei Yamashita

Much literature that addresses massive humandestruction of environments draws attention tothe ultimate survival of the nonhuman, albeit inchanged configurations. Taking this idea to anextreme is the narrator of the JapaneseAmerican writer Karen Tei Yamashita’s (1951–) novel Through the Arc of the Rain Forest(1990), who declares:

[A team of entomologists] hadmistakenly discovered [a] metalcemetery [in the Amazon] while

chasing after only one of severalthousand rare forms of butterfly.The machines found all dated backto the late f i f t ies and earlys i x t i e s—F-86 Sabres , F -4Phantoms, Huey Cobras, Lear Jetsand Piper Cubs, Cadi l lacs ,Volkswagens, Dodges and anassorted mixture of gas-guzzlers,as well as military jeeps and RedCross ambulances. After so manyyears in the forest, the vehicleswere slowly crumbling, piece bypiece, bit by bit, into a fine rustydust . . . What was most interestingabout the discovery of the rainforest parking lot was the way inwhich nature had moved toaccommodate and make use of it.The entomologists were shocked todiscover that their rare butterflyonly nested in the vinyl seats ofFords and Chevrolets and thattheir exquisite reddish coloringwas actually due to a steady diet ofhydrated ferric oxide, or rustywater. There was also discovered anew species of mice . . . Finally,there was a new form of air plant .. . There were, along with thesenew forms of life, a myriad oftraditional varieties of flora andfauna that had somehow found ahome, a food source or way of lifein this exclusive junkyard. It wasan eco log i ca l exper imentunparalleled in the known world ofnature (99-101).

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Ibuse Masuji

For its part, the Japanese atomic-bomb writerIbuse Masuji’s (1898-1993) novel Kuroi ame(Black Rain, 1966), regarded by some asJapan’s foremost work of atomic bombliterature, comments on the untimely deaths ofKokutaiji’s ancient camphor trees: “They weresaid to be more than one thousand years old,but today had been brought to an end” (97). Onthe other hand, like much Japanese literature ofthe atomic bomb, this narrative also remarkson the speed with which the flora and fauna ofHiroshima and Nagasaki reappear; Black Raindefies assertions made directly after thebombings that it would be decades beforeanyone or anything could live in these cities.

Surveying the ruins of Hiroshima, the novel’sprotagonist remarks, “This bomb was fosteringthe growth of plants and flies while increasingthe power that deters the essence of humanity.F l i e s a n d p l a n t s w e r e r a g i n gunbelievably”(188).18 But far from offeringsolace, or justification, these altered dynamicscomplicate evaluating patterns of nonhumanresilience.

In “Shinwa no umi e” [To the Sea of Myth], herprologue to Ogata Masato and Ōiwa Keibō’sTokoyo no fune o kogite: Minamatabyō shishiRowing the Boat of the Eternal World: AnUnauthorized History of Minamata Disease,1996], Ishimure reminisces: “I think of that day[when Ogata launched his wooden boat Tokoyo(Eternal World)] even now. Having harboredunprecedented suffering, and taking on thephysiognomy of myth, the Shiranui Sea isbeginning to revive” (viii). Without question,the region has rebounded from its days as oneof Japan’s most polluted sites; Minamata hasreinvented itself as an environmental modelcity, complete with an Eco Town (an industrialpark with a focus on recycling) and Eco Park(on reclaimed land in Minamata Bay). But asOgata and Ōiwa emphasize, many problemsremain. The conflicts, as they have articulatedthem, are multiple. They exist betweenpowerful outsiders intent on making a profitand impoverished local peoples who are easilymanipulated. They exist between individualsafflicted by pollution diseases and people, bothoutsiders and locals, who do not see themselvesas affected by the presence of these diseases,not to mention those benefiting financially fromindustries whose emissions cause thesedisorders. They also exist between individualssuffering from pollution maladies: differentpeople with different hopes for themselves,their towns, and their ecosystems.

Most important, these conflicts exist—albeitoften surreptitiously—within individuals. In theepilogue to Rowing the Eternal Sea, the Englishadaptation of Rowing the Boat of the Eternal

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World, Ōiwa notes that for Ogata the “solution”is “a return to a spiritual world on Earth, inwhich everyone and everything has a place. Itis a world in which l i fe is respected,worshipped, and celebrated” (185). Yet despiteOgata’s and his colleagues’ deep attachmentsto the nonhuman, despite Ogata’s claim at theconclusion of Rowing the Eternal Sea that“Embraced by the mountains and sea/ Egodissolves; self and landscape are one,”behaviors of local peoples do not conflict asdrastically as might be supposed with thebehaviors of outsiders that Ogata and Ōiwacriticize so harshly (175). To be sure, theactions of local f ishers rarely have asconcentrated an impact on human andnonhuman health as those of large polluters;the fishers do not exhibit anywhere near thesame desire for wealth, technology, prestige, orpower as do the Chisso Corporation, theJapanese government, and many of theirneighbors (individuals particularly concernedwith their financial futures). But even thoughthey pride themselves on their humility, thefishers too are not without culpability.

In both Rowing the Boat of the Eternal Worldand Rowing the Eternal Sea Ogata comments,“For me, [the reclaimed land in Minamata Bay]is in a word a place to apologize. It is a place toapologize not for others but for myself. It is atime to think of my own crimes” (Rowing theBoat 156). Rowing the Eternal Sea elaborateson questions of individual and collective guilt.Ogata asserts that even though he completelyopposes Chisso and its practices, he bearssome responsibility for what happened inMinamata:

B e f o r e t a l k i n g a b o u t t h eresponsibility that should be borneby Ch i s so o r t he s t a t e f o rMinamata disease, I had taken itupon myself to consider my ownsins, my own responsibility for thisinc ident . . . I am forced to

conclude that people bear the sinfor Minamata disease and that thefundamental responsibility for thisincident lies in the nature of ourcollective existence . . . From theperspective of the movement,Chisso is the Other, the enemy, theassailant. For me, this viewpointevolved until I could recognize “theChisso within” (Rowing the Eternal132, 146).

Ogata also comments that he is uncertain whathe would have done had he worked for Chisso:it is easy to censure the corporation, but had hebeen employed by the company he might wellhave participated in destroying Minamata’secosystems. He calls attention to theamb iva lence tha t pe rvades humanunders tand ings o f ac tua l and idea lre la t ionsh ips wi th both peop le andenvironments, ambivalence that in many casesaccompanies the massive harm to both.

Even more significant, Ogata likens his own(potential) culpability to that of Japanese whosupported the emperor system and Germanswho supported the Nazis during World WarTwo: “We can degenerate before we know it.Human beings are weak. It was, after all, theaverage person who embraced Nazi ideologyand worshipped Hitler. Can any of us say withcertainty that this would never happen to us? Itwas the average person who betrayed familymembers and turned in friends” (132). Movedby his visit to concentration camps in Europe inthe mid-1990s, he contrasts Germany’sdetermination to expose its war crimes withJapan’s struggle to repress discussion of them,just as the Japanese government has attemptedto whitewash the Minamata disaster.19 Rowingthe Eternal Sea here situates in global contexteven more than does Ishimure’s Sea ofSuffering the attitudes and behaviors that ledto catastrophic and continued damage toMinamata. In Ishimure’s writing, the explicit

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focus is most frequently local, rural landscapes.Yet the dynamics she describes have beenreplicated around the globe, and across time;her re lent less s truggle on behal f o fdisenfranchised peoples and environments caninspire environmental critics, and citizens,worldwide.

Ishimure occupies a somewhat marginalposition in world literature, as the field isconventionally conceived; her work has yet tobe translated broadly, perhaps in part becauseof its extensive use of the Kumamoto dialectand perhaps also because it is not the type ofwriting generally associated with Japan. Butthe implications of Ishimure’s ecocritical outputare global, and there is much to be gained byexamining how the phenomena her oeuvrebrings to light relate to phenomena worldwide.Sea of Suffering, as is true of so many ofIshimure’s works, alerts readers to the humaninclination to obfuscate even the most obviousthreats to health, both human and nonhuman,when addressing these perils would itselfthreaten to compromise short-term wellbeing;this novel illuminates the human reluctance todisturb the status quo, even when currentdestruction and future peril could not be moreevident. And Lake of Heaven underscores thelimits of ecological resilience, a sober reminderthat even while for certain landscapesrecovery, or at least transformation back to ahabitable space is not unattainable, it nevercan be taken for granted.

Major works of Ishimure Michiko inEnglish translation:

Lake of Heaven, trans. Bruce Allen. Lanham:Lexington Books, 2008.

Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow: Our MinamataDisease, trans. Livia Monnet, with NewIntroduction and Notes. Ann Arbor: Center forJapanese Studies, The University of Michigan,2003.

“Shiranui: A Contemporary Noh Drama,” trans.

Bruce Allen. Ishimure Michiko’s Writing inEcocritical Perspective: Between Sea and Sky.Ed. Bruce Allen and Yuki Masami. Lanham:Lexington Books, 2016.

Story of the Sea of Camellias. Trans. LiviaMonnet. Kyoto: Yamaguchi Publishing House,1983.

Works Cited

Allen, Bruce. “First There Were Stories:Michiko Ishimure’s Narratives of Resistanceand Reconciliation.” East Asian Ecocriticisms:A Critical Reader. Ed. Simon C. Estok and Won-Chung Kim. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2013. 35-57. Print.

———. “Ishimure Michiko and East Asia: AVision for Environmental and CulturalReconciliation.” Ecology, Consumption, andOtherness. Paper presented at the 2nd ASLE-Korea and ASLE-Japan Joint Symposium onLiterature and Environment. October 30-November 1, 2010. Seoul: SungkyunkwanUniversity. 217-30. Print.

Colligan-Taylor, Karen. The Emergence ofEnvironmental Literature in Japan. New York:Garland, 1990. Print.

Cumings, Bruce. Korea’s Place in the Sun: AModern History, expanded ed. New York:Norton, 2005. Print.

Damrosch, David. What is World Literature?Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.Print.

Du Fu. “Chun wang.” Du Fu shi xuan. Ed. WuGengshun, Chen Gang, and Wen Shaokun.Jinan: Shandong Daxue Chubanshe, 1999. 43.Print.

Guo, Nanyan. Refining Nature in ModernJapanese Literature: The Life and Art of ShigaNaoya. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.Print.

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Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Irmela. “Einführung.”Paradies im Meer der Qualen: UnsereMinamata-Krankheit. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag,1995. Trans. Ursula Gräfe. Print. 7-16.

Hoyano, Hatsuko. “The Struggle over the AraseDam: Japan’s First Dam Removal Begins,” Asia-Pacific Journal online. Web. July 30, 2004.

Ibuse Masuji. “Kakitsubata.” Ibuse Masujizenshū 5. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1975. 3-22.Print.

———. Kuroi ame. Ibuse Masuji zenshū 13.Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1975. 3-298. Print.

Ishimure Michiko. Kamigami no mura. Kugaijōdo, Sekai bungaku zenshū, vol. 3.4. Tokyo:Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2011. 197-451. Print.

———. Kugai jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō.Ishimure Michiko zenshū 2. Tokyo: FujiwaraShoten, 2004. 7-254. Print.

———. Kugai jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō. Kugaijōdo, Sekai bungaku zenshū, vol. 3.4. Tokyo:Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2011. 7-194. Print.

———. Paradies im Meer der Qualen: UnsereMinamata-Krankheit. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag,1995. Trans. Ursula Gräfe. Print.

———. “Shinwa no umi e.” Tokoyo no fune okogite: Minamatabyō shishi. Ogata Masato andŌiwa Keibō. Yokohama: Seori Shobō, 1996. i-viii. Print.

———. Ten no uo. Kugai jōdo, Sekai bungakuzenshū, vol. 3.4. Tokyo: Kawade ShobōShinsha, 2011. 453-753. Print.

———. Tenko. Ishimure Michiko zenshū 12.Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2005. 9-320. Print.

———. Tsubaki no umi no ki. Kyoto: YamaguchiPublishing House, 1983. Print.

———. Yoshi no nagisa: Ishimure Michiko jiden.Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2014. Print.

Kwŏn Taeun. “Passing the Old Capital.” Amongthe Flowering Reeds: Classic Korean PoemsWritten in Chinese. Trans. Chong-gil Kim.Buffalo: White Pine Press, 1987. 107. Print.

“ M a k i n g u p f o r M i n a m a t a , ”http://international.ucla.edu/asia/article/35030.Web. December 6, 2005.

Miner, Earl et al . , eds. The PrincetonCompanion to Classical Japanese Literature.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.Print.

Monnet, Livia. “Translator’s Introduction—‘ABook for the Future’: Kugai jōdo and theMinamata Protest Movement.” Paradise in theSea of Sorrow: Our Minamata Disease. Trans.Livia Monnet. Ann Arbor: Center for JapaneseStudies, University of Michigan, 2003. vii-xxxiv.Print.

Murphy, Patrick D. Farther Afield in the Studyof Nature-Oriented Literature. Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 2000. Print.

Ogata Masato and Ōiwa Keibō. Rowing theEternal Sea: The Story of a MinamataFisherman . Lanham, MD: Rowman andLittlefield, 2001. Adapted by Karen Colligan-Taylor. Print.

Ogata Masato and Ōiwa Keibō. Tokoyo no funeo kogite: Minamatabyō shishi. Yokohama: SeoriShobō, 1996. Print.

Shirane, Haruo. Japan and the Culture of theFour Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts.New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.Print.

Sukhenko, Inna. “Reconsidering the Eco-Imperatives of Ukrainian Consciousness: AnIntroduction to Ukranian EnvironmentalLiterature.” Ecoambiguity, Community, andDeve lopment : Toward a Po l i t i c i zedEcocriticism. Ed. Scott Slovic et al. New York:Lexington Books, 2014. 113-29. Print.

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Takahashi, Tsutomu. “Minamata and theSymbo l i c D i scourse o f the South . ”Ecoambiguity, Community, and Development:Toward a Politicized Ecocriticism. Ed. ScottSlovic et al. New York: Lexington Books, 2014.59-69. Print.

Thornber, Karen Laura. Ecoambiguity:Environmental Crises and East AsianLiteratures. Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress, 2012. Print.

Yamashita, Karen Tei. Through the Arc of the

Rain Forest. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press,1990. Print.

Yi Sŏngbu. “Chayŏn.” Uridŭl ŭi yangsik. Seoul:Minŭmsa, 1974. 58. Print.

Yip Wai-lim (Ye Weilian). “Yehua de gushi.”Yehua de gushi: Ye Weilian shiji. Taipei:Zhongwai Wenxue Yuekanshe, 1975. 82-85.Print.

Zabytko, Irene. The Sky Unwashed. ChapelHill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2000. Print.

Karen Thornber is professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages atHarvard University, Victor and William Fung Director of the Harvard Asia Center, Chair,Harvard University Council on Asian Studies" and Director, Harvard Global InstituteEnvironmental Humanities Initiative. She is the author of two multiple international award-winning books: Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literature and Empire ofTexts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature.

Bruce Allen is professor of English Language and Literature at Seisen University, Tokyo,Japan.

Notes1 Sea of Suffering was awarded the Kumamoto Nichinichi Cultural Prize (1969) and the ŌyaSōichi Prize for Nonfiction Literature (1970), both of which Ishimure declined, declaring thatshe could not accept awards while Minamata Disease victims remained uncompensated.Ishimure was also awarded the Asahi Prize (2002) “For her creative work that points to thecrisis our ecosystem faces due to environmental destruction.” The Asahi Prize honors“individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields ofacademics and arts, and have greatly contributed to the development and progress ofJapanese culture and society at large”(http://www.asahi.com/shimbun/award/asahi/englishlist.html#winners2011). But as LiviaMonnet has noted, “This belated recognition has not, however, significantly changed thewriter’s marginal status and the fact that the bulk of her work is respectfully overlooked bycritics and the public alike” (xxviii-xxix).2 The citation for Ishimure reads in part, “In electing Michiko Ishimure to receive the 1973Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, theBoard of Trustees recognizes her as the ‘voice of her people’ in their struggle against theindustrial pollution that has been distorting and destroying their lives.”http://www.rmaf.org.ph/newrmaf/main/awardees/awardee/profile/183.

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3 Titled “Ishimure Michiko: The Price of Pollution and the Presence of the Past,” the eighthchapter of Murphy’s book discusses Sea of Suffering as “decidedly environmental literature”and Story of the Sea of Camellias as “basically nature literature” (157). Murphy expressessurprise at the neglect of Sea of Suffering in the United States, given “what a terrific exampleit is of literary writing by an activist that is directly tied to changes in social awareness andenvironmental legislation” (147). Also noteworthy is Inna Sukhenko’s reference to Ishimure inthe context of Ukrainian environmental literature, specifically Chernobyl narratives (119).Recently, attention has been drawn to Ishimure’s contributions to literature of the globalSouth. See Tsutomu Takahashi, “Minamata and the Symbolic Discourse of the South.”Interestingly, in Japan, more on Ishimure has been written by scholars of American/Englishliterature than by scholars of Japanese literature. Takahashi, for instance, is a professor ofAmerican Literature at Kyushu University, while Bruce Allen, translator of Lake of Heavenand author of “First there Were Stories,” is a professor of English at Seisen University, Tokyo.Likewise, Masami Yuki, a professor at Kanazawa University who has also publishedextensively on Ishimure, is an English Ph.D. Ishimure’s recently released autobiography,Yoshi no nagisa: Ishimure Michiko jiden Shore of Reeds: Autobiography of Ishimure Michiko,2014], reinforces the struggles, and the persistence, of this tenacious writer andenvironmental activist. Although hardly the first Japanese writer to draw attention toanthropogenically transformed ecosystems, she is certainly one of the most prominent. For anoutline of Japanese literature’s engagement with the nonhuman since the Man’yōshūCollection of Ten Thousand Leaves, eighth c.] see Thornber, 61-74. See also Colligan-Taylor,Guo, Shirane.4 The introduction to the German translation speaks of Minamata as a household name notonly in Japan but “all over the world” [Hijiya-Kirschnereit, 7].5 In general, texts labeled “world literature” have been translated into more than just one ortwo languages.6 Damrosch continues, “[World literature helps us] appreciate the ways in which a literarywork reaches out and away from its point of origin” (300).7 Carson is best known for Silent Spring (1962), which was quickly translated into a numberof languages and was one of several works that sparked environmental movementsworldwide.8 Ishimure’s own sustained fight for the rights of Minamata patients and their families hasalso inspired environmental activisim.9 For other of Ishimure’s global contributions see Allen 2013, 51-55. Allen concludes,“Ishimure’s work holds the radical promise that in stories – living stories rooted in livingcommunities and cultures – there is hope for positively redirecting our course through themodern, increasingly globalized and environmentally challenged world. Her voice . . .provides a particularly strong imagination that may help us to better consider our task andour direction as we chart and enact our way forward – individually and collectively, locallyand globally” (55).10 Cumings discusses Chisso’s involvement in Korea, arguing that the company “provided thestarting point for North Korea’s postwar chemicals industry (which was integral to its self-reliant industrial policy).”11 Also noteworthy in this regard is Kuwabara Shisei’s (1936–) Minamatabyō [MinamataDisease, 1965] and work by Shiota Takeshi and Akutagawa Jin. Films too have provided

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graphic evidence of the terrors of Minamata Disease, especially Tsuchimoto Noriaki’s(1928-2008) Minamata: kanjasan to sono sekai [Minamata: The Victims and Their World,1971] and the three-part documentary Igaku toshite no Minamatabyō [Medical Report onMinamata Disease, 1974-75], Minamatabyō: sono 20nen [Minamata Disease: The Past TwentyYears, 1976], and Minamatabyō: sono 30nen [Minamata Disease: The Past Thirty Years, 1987](Monnet xi).12 For additional examples of this phenomenon in global perspective, see Thornber.13 Among the best-known East Asian texts contrasting nonhuman resilience with humanephemerality is the Tang poet Du Fu’s (712-770) “Chun wang” [Spring View], known for itsclaim, “The kingdom is destroyed, hills and rivers remain/ In the city in spring, grasses growgreen.” Other examples from premodern East Asia include the Korean writer Kwŏn Taeun’s(1612-1699) poem “Passing the Old Capital,” which claims, “The mountains are blue as ofold,/ but how many brave men have come and gone.” One of the many twentieth-century EastAsian creative works highlighting nonhuman revivability in the face of human suffering is theChinese writer Yip Wai-lim’s (Ye Weilian, 1937–) poem “Yehua de gushi” [Story ofWildflowers, 1974], which begins, “Wildflowers/ after the raging artillery fire subsides/enthusiastically come into bloom” and continues by juxtaposing society in mourning withthriving flowers and crops (82). Also from the 1970s but contradicting the paradigm ofresilient nonhuman and ephemeral human are texts such as the Korean writer Yi Sŏngbu’s(1942–) poem “Chayŏn” (Nature, 1974), which claims that the earth “gives off the smell ofbeing unable to being again,” that “although the world’s valiant people keep coming/ theearth lags behind, far, far too late.”14 For more on the Arase Dam see Hoyano.15 Early Japanese believed that words harbor great powers, powers that can be released byrecitation. In the Kojiki [Record of Ancient Matters, 712] words are described as having thepower to do harm, but by the time of the Man’yōshū [Collection of Ten Thousand Years,eighth c.] words were idealistically believed to have only the power to do good (Miner, 285).16 During the drought, when the lake’s water level decreases, this monument becomes visible(309). Near the conclusion of Lake of Heaven, the narrator further discusses the changes tothe landscape made by the region’s first farmers (312-13).17 Cf. Ishimure’s Story of the Sea of Camellias, which describes the 1931 drought thatdevastated Minamata.18 Cf. Ibuse’s short story “Kakitsubata” [Crazy Iris, 1951], where the narrator notes that tenmonths after the bombing of Hiroshima only the palms are putting forth new buds. See alsothe Ukranian American writer Irene Zabytko’s (1954–) novel The Sky Unwashed (2000),which describes the slow regeneration of plants in spaces close to Chernobyl.19 On the other hand, as Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit suggests in the introduction to theGerman translation of Sea of Suffering, narratives on the Holocaust share characteristics withthose on Minamata (8).