A Woman with Demons: A Life of Kamiya Mieko (1914-1979).

A WOMAN WITH DEMONS: A Life of Kamiya Mieko (1914-1979). By Yuzo Ota. Montreal (QC) and Kingston (ON): McGill-Queens' University Press. 2006. xxiv, 261 pp. CA$39.95, cloth. ISBN 0-7735-3011-8.

This is the English version of Ota's book Soshitsu kara no shuppatsu: Kamiya Mieko no koto (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001). The subject of the book, Kamiya Mieko, a well-known psychiatrist and clinician in a leprosarium in Japan, is almost unknown outside of Japan, but Ota, a professor of Japanese history at McGill University, has now introduced her to an English-speaking audience.

In this biography, Ota focuses on Kamiya's journey in search of her self and her struggle to survive the loss of her objective in life, precipitated by the shocking ending of her first love. By analyzing Kamiya's depression and thoughts of suicide, Ota explores how this traumatic event led to her strong identification with human suffering and her desire to work to alleviate it. Through a close reading of her major work, What Makes Our Life Worth Living (1966), her other books, and her unpublished private documents, Ota corrects the myths about Kamiya, portraying a far more complex figure (a woman with demons) than her popular image as a philanthropic doctor who worked with leprosy patients. Ota writes that Kamiya herself was keenly aware of the complexity of her personality. He quotes from her diary, in which she describes "a person possessed with seven demons--that truly is me" (p. xiii). She also refers to herself as an "epileptoid," and as "in many respects a person who is psychologically abnormal, and I realize now how by necessity and fate I was led to the study of psychiatry in the process of my self-exploration" (p. 167).

A mystic but visual experience--dazzling light like a lightning bolt crossing her field of vision--came to Kamiya after the death of her lover, Nomura Kazuhiko. Similar to the Quaker concept of "inner light," it saved her from the depths of despair and possible suicide. After that she acquired strength and hope and began the gradual rebuilding of her new life. However, she retained her inner turmoil and felt cut off from the ordinary world, where people seemed to take the value of life for granted. It was when she was in this state of mind that she visited a leprosarium, Tama-zensho-en in Tokyo, in 1934. The realization that Kamiya's encounter with leprosy took place while she was still depressed by her lover's death casts a new light on her desire to devote her life to leprosy victims, despite her own tuberculosis, cancer, and opposition from her family. Although the root cause was different, Kamiya found that the despair ensuing from her lover's death was almost the same as the experience of leprosy victims. This reverses the prevailing philanthropic interpretation, that the privileged Kamiya was motivated by a sense of obligation to the underprivileged, much as Albert Schweitzer had been (pp. 64-68).

Kamiya became a member of the medical staff of the Department of Psychiatry at Tokyo University Hospital in October 1944. However, she could not get along with her supervising professor and a colleague who was envious of her. She wanted to deal with psychiatry from the perspective of both the human sciences and the natural sciences. But her professor had little understanding of the former approach. Disappointment with the world of academics and her interpersonal problems made her feel strongly that she would like to be a writer more than anything else. Among Kamiya's collected works in 13 volumes, the best one is considered to be What Makes Our Life Worth Living. It has been read by millions in Japan.

Kamiya's trauma resulting from Nomura's death lasted a very long time, until 1960, even following her marriage to Kamiya Noburo in 1946. However, Ota points out that Kamiya's life had a happy ending, because her obsession with the loss of Nomura disappeared completely with the fulfillment of the writing of her magnum opus (p. 219).

The author successfully relates an impressive life story of a remarkable Japanese female doctor and writer of complex character, a narrative that resonates timelessly within a reader's soul and mind. In this sense, this vitally convincing biography of Kamiya Mieko by Ota deserves to be widely read by English readers around the world, even beyond the field of Women's Studies.

TSUNEHARU GONNAMI

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada