TEHRAN – Japanese Ambassador Kazutoshi Aikawa paid a visit to Koniko Yamamura, the narrator of “Immigrant from the Land of the Sun”, at Tehran’s Khatam al-Anbia Hospital on Thursday.

Yamamura, a Japanese woman whose son Mohammad Babai from her marriage to an Iranian man was martyred during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, was admitted to the hospital last week due to a respiratory problem.

In a press release published by the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, Aikawa wished her recovery and said, “Ms. Babai could not talk, but I believe that she can hear my voice.”

“I hope she recovers from the illness soon; she has played a key role in the expansion of relations between Iran and Japan,” he added

Iranian writer Hamid Hesam wrote Yamamura’s memoirs in “Immigrant from the Land of the Sun”, which was published in 2020.

The book has been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Urdu and Pashtu.

Yamamura chose the name Saba after she married an Iranian Muslim in Japan and moved to Iran afterwards, where her life was totally changed after her 19-year-old son Mohammad was martyred.

What makes her life distinguished are the events that changed her life.

“I never thought my life story would turn into a book, because if I were living in Japan with my parents, I would have had a typical life, but marrying an Iranian Muslim changed my life totally,” she has said.

“After the martyrdom of my son, several writers proposed writing my biography but I did not consent. However, I met Hesam on a trip to Hiroshima and I trusted him, and the interviews began for the book,” she added.

Hesam previously said that he met Yamamura in 2014 during a visit to Hiroshima along with a number of Iranian cineastes, authors and war veterans who attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony.

The ceremony is held annually to commemorate the anniversary of the tragedy of the U.S. nuclear attack on the Japanese city.

“I met Yamaumura at the airport where she was introduced to us as the translator of the team. I noticed that she was reciting verses of the Holy Quran while onboard or when she sometimes told me short memories of her life,” Hesam said.

“Later, I noticed that she patiently listened to the survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombardment and those Iranian veterans injured in Iraqi chemical attacks as she was in tears. It was in those years that I began talks through interviews, and gradually I was successful in writing her untold stories,” he noted.

Photo: Japanese Ambassador Kazutoshi Aikawa (L) and his colleague accompanied by a medical team member visit Koniko Yamamura at Tehran’s Khatam al-Anbia Hospital on June 16, 2022. 

MMS/YAW