When Saou Ichikawa was named the winner of the Akutagawa Prize in July 2023, one of Japan’s oldest and most prestigious literary awards, she flashed a thumbs-up to her parents and editor before going onstage to receive it in front of a gold screen.

While the 45-year-old novelist was the 181st winner of the prize, she was the first to require a ramp to ascend the stage. Ms. Ichikawa has congenital myopathy, a muscle disorder that requires her to use a wheelchair for mobility and a ventilator to breath, and was the first author with a severe physical disability to win.

She used her moment in the national spotlight to highlight how people with disabilities face isolation and are invisible in society, a theme she took up in her prizewinning novel, “Hunchback.”

“I wrote this novel thinking that it is a problem that there were few authors with disabilities,” she told reporters, pressing a button on her larynx to speak. “Why did the first winner not appear until 2023? I want everyone to think about that.”

Ms. Ichikawa after winning the Akutagawa Prize in 2023.Credit…The Yomiuri Shimbun

It was a long journey for Ms. Ichikawa, who was removed from school after being put on the ventilator at age 13. But she refused to disappear, becoming an author in her 20s in an effort to reclaim a voice in society. For two decades, she wrote more than 30 pulp romance and fantasy stories meant for young readers. But all of her manuscripts were rejected.