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Photographer Eugene Smith’s books documenting the Minamata Disease are, unfortunately, out of print and thus difficult to find these days. Smith’s photos brought attention to the disease, the effects of mercury poisoning from heavy metals released in and around Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture (Kyushu, Japan) by the Chiso factory in the early 1970’s.
We have high hopes for this new graphic novel The Minamata Story: An Eco Tragedy to be released by Stone Bridge Press January 2021, and available now for pre-order.
Read more about the award-winning author and graphic novels here: Sean Michael Wilson on Comics and Graphic Novels.
Minamata Disease is considered one of the major events of Japan’s post-war era which helped spur grass-roots activism in 1968 along with the Todai Riots of 1968-69. The rise of Japan’s Red Army in 1971 led to massacres, bombings and hijackings until 1988. The 1985 crash of a Japan Airlines Flight 123, blamed on poor maintenance, killed 520 people and was recounted in Hideo Yokoyama’s book Seventeen (translated into English by Louise Heal Kawai).