For nearly half a century, Ishimure Michiko (b. 1927) has been an important voice in Japanese environmental literature. She first came to national attention as a result of her writings on the ongoing environmental disaster of Minamata Disease. Caused by the methyl mercury and other poisonous industrial wastes dumped by the Chisso Corporation into the harbor at the town of Minamata, the debilitating neurological syndrome first began appearing in the mid 1950s, but won widespread attention only in the 1960s, thanks to the efforts of local residents and activists. Ishimure's 1969 book Kugai jÅ do: Waga MinamatabyÅ (available in English translation by Livia Monnet as Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow: Our Minamata Disease) played a major role in alerting the public to the disaster and its horrific consequences. An intricately constructed jeremiad, the work weaves together narratives of Ishimure's personal encounters with victims of the disease, quotations from scientific reports, poetic evocations of landscape, and folkloric reconstructions of a local culture devastated by industrial modernity. Ishimure would continue to write additional installments of Kugai jÅ do, and in 2004 the work was finally published in its completed form as a trilogy. In addition to her non-fiction prose, Ishimure's poetry and fiction have also won acclaim, including her 1997 novel, Tenko (forthcoming in English translation by Bruce Allen as Lake of Heaven). MB