Sao Ichikawa, Woman with Congenital Myopathy Wins Japan’s Akutagawa Prize

By Barrier Free Japan, NHK

July 19 2023

TOKYO – Sao Ichikawa, the winner of the Akutagawa Prize, is a 43-year-old resident of Kanagawa Prefecture.

She was diagnosed with congenital myopathy, a muscle disease, one of the most intractable diseases, when she was 10 years old, began using a ventilator at the age of 14, uses an electric wheelchair for transportation, and writes using a tablet device.

Ichikawa has been creating and submitting light novels to awards for more than 20 years, and her first attempt at pure literature, “Hunchback,” won the ‘Bungakukai’ New Writer Award for her debut, and the Akutagawa Award was also awarded to her in her first nomination.

The protagonist of the story is a woman with the same serious disability as Ichikawa.

She describes her life in which she is forced to rely on medical equipment such as a ventilator and aspirator to aspirate her lungs, while at the same time humorously expressing her bitter sarcasm toward the lives of normal people.

The work is full of Ichikawa’s powerful words as a person with severe disabilities.