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‘Life's First Night’ and the Treatment of Hansen's Disease in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Kathryn M. Tanaka
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In July 2014, the front page of the Mainichi Shinbun featured a small picture of a young man in glasses with the headline, “Today's Faces.” A blurb below the photo declared, “The real name of the early Showa author Hōjō Tamio, who had Hansen's Disease and lived a life under quarantine, will be made public in a booklet to be published next month.” The article then revealed that Hōjō Tamio, the author of the novella “Life's First Night,” was born Shichijō Kōji and raised in Anan-shi, on the island of Shikoku in Tokushima prefecture.

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Research Article
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Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , January 2015 , e1
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2015

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