Mariko Tatsumoto is an eight-time award-winning author of Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade novels that explore Japanese and Japanese American history, culture, and adventure. Born in Japan and raised in the U.S. from the age of 8, she became the first Asian woman attorney admitted to the Colorado Bar before becoming a novelist. In addition to fiction, she coaches aspiring authors in the craft of writing through her writing handbook.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it’s about and what inspired you to write it?
Mariko Tatsumoto: My historical novel, “Blossoms on a Poisoned Sea,” a Freeman Book Awards Honorable Mention and Colorado Authors League Award finalist, unravels the devastating impact of one of history’s most notorious industrial disasters that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s in Japan.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
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This true story of mercury poisoning is narrated through two fictitious characters, Yuki and Kiyo. When they fall in love in 1956, their world is shattered by corporate greed, government cover-ups, and a poisoned sea that threatens their families and their beautiful bay. Together, they battle a powerful company and complicit authorities, as they fight for justice and persevere against all odds. The novel intertwines actual events with themes of social justice, environmental pollution, politics, ethics, and corporate corruption offering readers an engaging, narrative-driven perspective on Japan’s culture, its industrial history and its impact on society and nature.
As a young person, I was confronted with the pain of Minamata Disease. Once seen, some images are impossible to forget. I still recall the black and white photographs of twisted bodies, mouths frozen in silent agony, and wrists bent back so unnaturally I could almost hear them snap.
In June 1972, my mother called me over to the coffee table and pointed to the open pages of “Life Magazine,” a staple in American households at the time. What I saw shook me—full-page, glossy pictures of atrophied limbs grotesquely pretzeled, rib cages jutting out, bodies so malnourished it seemed impossible they could remain alive. Their cries were silent on the page, yet I heard them in my head. It was something out of a horror movie, yet it was real. These were the victims of mercury poisoning—Minamata Disease, an appalling neurological disease—named after the once idyllic bay in Japan where this catastrophe began. The magazine showed the destruction of a sea once filled with clear blue water, now opaque, gray and lifeless.
“Blossoms on a Poisoned Sea”
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SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Tatsumoto: The excerpt is Chapter 30, just about the halfway point of the novel. Yuki, one of the two protagonists, is the only one in her family who has not contracted the Minamata disease. Victims could receive a tiny compensation from the government if they are certified that they have the disease. Yuki’s family is on the verge of starvation and goes into Minamata City to get Yuki’s baby sister certified. This chapter shows how victims are treated by the non-afflicted people.
SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Tatsumoto: Decades after Life magazine published the tragedy of mercury pollution, those haunting images resurfaced in my mind, and I began researching what had happened to those victims. I was heartbroken to learn that no cure has ever been found. They continued to suffer and die without receiving justice.
I couldn’t help the victims, but I wanted to tell their story.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Tatsumoto: I meticulously researched and studied mercury poisoning caused by corporate malfeasance and learned the many heartless ways profits are made.
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Tatsumoto: Research was my biggest challenge.
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Expecting to find a plethora of in-depth information, I was surprised that most of the online information was cursory or overly technical, serving as a scientific record. Moreover, these materials were second-hand, a regurgitation of what was on Wikipedia and other such sites. I sought the truth, the original, unfiltered accounts as experienced contemporaneously by people who witnessed this era.
My language skill wasn’t strong enough to read the books and newspapers written in Japanese, but I found two English-translated books: “Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow: Our Minamata Disease,” and “Bitter Sea: The Human Cost of Minamata Disease.”
Thirdly, I located a powerful documentary released in 1971 “Minamata: The Victims and Their World,” depicting the daily struggles of the afflicted in their homes and hospitals. These images needed no translation. These resources became the cornerstone of my research.
Of course, I used verifiable information from the Internet as well.
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?
Tatsumoto: This novel is factually true about the genesis of the devastating neurological disease caused by mercury pollution. I want readers to understand that environmental pollution continues today throughout the world, sometimes unchecked, especially in less advanced countries.
People, mainly the poor, who live around polluted sites contract illnesses, suffer, and often die. Large, powerful corporations still deliberately hide toxic activities, are often complicit in these actions, and continue polluting for the sheer sake of profit. Globally speaking, more than two million deaths a year are attributed to environmental pollution.
Minamata Disease later broke out in other parts of Japan, as well as in China, Canada, South Africa and South America. It’s caused by mercury pollution from factories and gold mining.
SunLit: Were you concerned that a book based on a topic like environmental pollution might have the rest of its plot lost to some readers?
Tatsumoto: No, because ultimately, this is a story about Yuki and Kiyo that involves romance, murder, perseverance and redemption. Their brave fight to save Yuki’s family from the disease and starvation brings them closer together and shows the resilience of love blossoming in the face of despair, about individuals forced into impossible choices. And to ask: What is the cost for a person to remain loyal to their loved ones, jobs, and to justice?
After all, this is a novel about the enduring power of love and hope even in the worst of times. How much more compelling can a book get?
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Tatsumoto: “Amache Blues” is about a 20-year-old Japanese American woman in a World War II internment camp in Colorado who must protect her mother from her abusive father, has a forbidden liaison, and later stands trial that will change the course of her life.
This historical fiction focuses on incarcerated Japanese American women and incorporates the never-told history of the only Japanese Americans to be tried and convicted of treason. This novel is timely in today’s volatile political climate of immigration and examination of civil rights regardless of the reader’s political leaning.
A few more quick items
Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “Run With the Wind” by Shion Miura.
First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: “Island of the Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell. I still have the book from when I was in fourth grade!
Best writing advice you’ve ever received: If you don’t write, the book will never get done.
Favorite fictional literary character: Harry Bosch
Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): Romantic comedy
Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: Audio
One book you’ve read multiple times: “Boys in the Boat” by Daniel Brown
Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: My ceramic Minion dolls with the sign, “Be like a dog. Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Best antidote for writer’s block: Write the ending
Most valuable beta reader: My partner
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