OSAKA — A 53-year-old Minamata disease victim who appeared in a magazine article that deeply moved a young Barack Obama has written to the U.S. president, requesting a meeting when he visits Tokyo on Friday.
In his book, "Dreams From My Father," which was published before he became president, Obama describes how as a young boy he saw a photo of a Minamata victim with her mother in a bath in the June 1972 edition of Life magazine.
"The photograph of a Japanese woman cradling a young, naked girl in a shallow tub: that was sad; the girl was sick, her legs twisted, her head fallen back against the mother's breast, the mother's face tight with grief," Obama wrote.