Ginko Ogino parece destinada a una vida convencional, dominada por la sociedad machista del Japón del siglo XIX. Pero, cuando su marido le contagia gonorrea, una enfermedad considerada incurable, se divorcia y es marginada por su propia familia. Incapaz de soportar la humillación de ser examinada por hombres, decide convertirse en médico. ¿Será capaz de superar los prejuicios de un país y una época incapaz de aceptar que una mujer se convierta en doctora?

Si he de hacer caso de los agradecimientos del autor, no estoy ante una fabulación sino ante la biografía novelada de Ginko Ogino, la primera doctora japonesa, cosa nada fácil en el Japón ultramachista del siglo XIX en el que hasta los nombres de las mujeres eran cortos para facilitarles la vida a los hombres.

Ginko pertenece a una familia adinerada y tras su matrimonio decide estudiar medicina impulsada por necesidades personales.

Es una novela entretenida, más por el argumento que por la literatura.

Seix Barral siempre fue una editorial cuidadosa con sus textos, ahora que pertenece al Grupo Planeta, creo, parece que es un criadero de erratas (tiene más de las aceptables).

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Watanabe, Junichi. Ginko : la primera doctora / Jun’ichi Watanabe ; traducción del inglés por Beatriz Iglesias Lamas. -- [1ª ed.]. -- Barcelona : Seix Barral, 2009. -- 399 p. ; 24 cm. -- Tít. orig.: Hanauzumi. -- D.L. B 16947-2009. -- ISBN 978-84-322-3191-9

I. Iglesias Lamas, Beatriz, trad. II. Título.

821.521-311.2"19"
929Ogino, Ginko(0:82) ( )

Una apasionante novela sobre la epopeya de la primera mujer médico en Japón. Ginko Ogino parece destinada a una vida convencional, dominada por la sociedad machista del Japón del siglo XIX. Pero cuando su marido le contagia gonorrea, una enfermedad considerada incurable, se divorcia y es marginada por su propia familia. Incapaz de soportar la humillación de ser examinada por un hombre, decide convertirse en médico. ¿Será capaz de superar los prejuicios de un país y una época incapaz de aceptar que una mujer se convierta en doctora?

Elämäkertatyyppinen tarina Japanin ensimmäisestä naislääkäristä. Ajankuva 1800-luvun lopun ja 1900-luvun alkupuolen Japanista. ( )

A fictitious look at the life story of Ginko Ogino, the first female doctor in Japan.

Born to a wealthy family in Japan in the early 19th century, Ginko Ogino, had no inkling of how her life would change when she first came back to her family home, after being infected with gonorrhea by her husband of one year. Sent to the hospital in Tokyo for treatment, she is shocked and humiliated at her treatment at the hands of the doctors and medical students. She ostracizes herself by seeking a divorce from her husband and has to live with the stares from the villagers and her family's disapproval.

Vowing to become a doctor herself so that other females would not have to continue suffering such indignities at the hands of male doctors,she sets out to gain the education she needs in order to gain entry into a medical college. This is a story of a courageous and determined woman, for in male dominated Japan, a woman wanting to be more than a teacher was unheard of. She suffers not just societal presssures to conform, but the pressure of being disowned by her own family for wanting to enter into the medical field.

Gaining entrance into a medical college, she is further hampered by resentful male students who consider her a trespasser into the male domain,and harrass her unmercifully.

Despite the many obstacles in her way, she eventually gains her medical degree and receives her certification to practice. As her fame grows, she paves the way for more females to enter into the medical profession and offered internships to many who were in the same financial straits that she was in when she herself was a student.

Her life, even after she became a successful medical practitioner, was not an easy one. The disease was to plague her for the rest of her life, and she carried a deep resentment against the male gender for many years, despite forming a few platonic but caring relationships with some men in her life, until finally she falls in love with a younger man and marries him, inspite of universal disapproval from everyone whose opinions she held dear.

She was a woman of compassion but perhaps because of her struggles to build a life for herself without conforming to social dictates, she held others to almost unbending standards that many failed to meet. She was no less stern on herself and till the end of her days, she sought to provide public service to improve and enhance the position of women in society. ( )