In the summer of 1996 Ishimure Michiko read selections from her writings and spoke about her life of activism to an audience of international scholars gathered in Honolulu, Hawai’i, for a symposium on Japanese and American environmental literature.1 This event was an important landmark for a number of reasons. It reflected the growing awareness that the study of environmental literature needed to broaden its sights from its earlier focus on American and English language-centered literature to embrace global literatures, languages, and world-views, and to form partnerships among writers and scholars around the world. The meeting also brought the writing and life work of Ishimure Michiko to the attention of Western scholars, and helped to inspire global interest in
Ishimure literature.