The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki

by Kyoko Selden (Editor), Mark Selden (Editor)

This collection of factual reports, short stories, poems and drawings expresses in a deeply personal voice the devastating effects of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, War, Japanese History

257 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Kyoko Selden is the author of a number of articles, translations and edited volumes. She is the co-translator of Kayano Shigeru’s Our Land Was a Forest (Westview, 1994), translator of Honda Katsuichi’s Harukor: Ainu Woman’s Tale (University of California Press, 2000), The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki (M.E. Sharpe, 1997), and most recently, More Stories By Japanese Women Writers, An Anthology. She is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate. Kyoko Selden taught Japanese language-literature at Cornell University until 2008.

(from http://japanfocus.org/-Kyoko-Selden)

Reviews

[Darya Silman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an anthology of memoirs, short stories, novellas, poetry, and paintings. It gives voice to the hidden feelings of ordinary Japanese, who are often pictured as loyal to their country, well-organized, and reserved. Horror, numbness, relief, the survivor's guilt, loneliness - the anthology poignantly expresses the whole emotional spectrum of the catastrophe. Memoirs show how a single decision to take this tram or another changed a life or how diseases caused by radiation affected unborn children. It was a surprise to learn that survivors got little financial support to pay medical bills and rebuild their homes. The sick people had to go through all hells of bureaucracy to get to an institution that provided help. Americans, without the cooperation of local medical experts, photographed the scars but did nothing to elevate the suffering, their reports going directly to the US.

As always with anthologies, some stories/memoirs are better quality than others. I couldn't 'get' into poetry (tanka and haiku) and paintings. The book's spirit may have been lost in translation into English.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tragic accounts, but important to fully understand the effect of the bomb from true accounts of Japanese peoples.

[Neyugn Nednil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn’t your average boring history book. This book is actually for entertaining, yet heartbreaking. I always thought the bombings in Japan were interesting, so it was normal for me to be attracted to this book. All the families losing their families even though most japanese citizens had nothing to do with the war is truly unfortunate. The book is about Japanese citizens who suffered because of the bombings. It contains multiple point of views of the atomic bomb survivors. I really enjoyed how the book was not a typical history book spitting facts after facts and it was written in a very creative way. Writing the book in perspective of the survivors was a unique and very entertaining way to convey the stories of the survivors. The book even provides haikus for you to read. I just wish that there were more photos of the aftermath of the bombing. Besides that, everything else was great. I have never really learned about the Japan bombing, but was always interested in it so this book was perfect to get. This book showed me how the bombing affected the Japanese emotionally, mentally, and physically. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in war because it shows the struggle of war on another level. Overall, an amazing book

[mia ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡]

--> only read TWO GRAVE MARKERS by kyoko hayashi

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I'm not sure exactly why I was drawn to this book, I suspect it was a subconscious desire to gain more insight into these events than the rather sterile historical aspects I'd been exposed to. While I braced myself for what I knew would be horrendous experiences, I was still overcome with emotion at the extent of the devastation endured by these people.

Please don't get me wrong: this wasn't a gore-fest with lots of hysterics or finger-pointing. In fact, it's the exact opposite. The simplicity of the prose, accounts given by people going through the machinations of their everyday lives, is one of the reasons they had such an impact on me. I think their stories will stay with me always. and perhaps, in an age when everyone seems to be acquiring atomic weapons, this should be required reading alongside the dry statistics we teach in high school ... because we should all be actively working to assure that something like this never, ever happens again.

[Harrison Lam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the better books on the atomic bombing. It isn't your typical memoir book or something that recounts stories that have been told over and over. It gives an in depth analysis to the bombing itself and how it came to be dropped rather than just blatantly putting out there sad stories of how lives were taken that day and etc. The memoirs itself are also very gruesome and will have you feeling very bad for the Japanese and what they had to go through. It's not monotone at all and give in depth descriptions of the emotions of the survivors themselves. They also provide pictures and poems so that if you ever get bored of reading memoirs, you have other fun things to busy yourself with. A good read!

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

very sad...very hopefull

[Jean]

It was not easy to read this book, because is told heartbreaking stories of Atom bomb survivors. I'm very glad I read it though.