J'avais six ans à Hiroshima - Le 6 août 1945, 8h15

by Keiji Nakazawa, Miho Cibot-Shimma (Translator), Paul Quilès (Preface)

Un document exceptionnel Le 6 août 1945, à 8 h 15 du matin, une gigantesque boule de feu est apparue 500 mètres au-dessus de la ville japonaise d'Hiroshima. Avec le bombardement nucléaire déclenché par les États-Unis, " le feu du plus atroce génie humain s'abattait sur une population d'enfants, de femmes, de vieillards et d'hommes innocents ", selon les mots de l'écrivain Bernard Clavel.

Keiji Nakazawa habitait avec sa famille à un peu plus d'un kilomètre du centre-ville, dans un quartier où les maisons coexistaient encore avec les champs et les potagers. Keiji avait 6 ans. Il a échappé à la mort. Soixante-quinze ans après la tragédie, son témoignage, dans sa nudité même, est glaçant de vérité. L'auteur nous fait littéralement voir, à travers ses yeux d'enfant puis sa mémoire d'adulte, l'horreur qu'a vécue la population de cette ville martyre.

L'apocalypse nucléaire à Hiroshima a tué, selon les sources, entre 140 000 et 200 000 personnes, le 6 août 1945 et dans les années qui suivirent.

Cette édition comprend un texte de Bernard Clavel, " La Peur et la Honte ".

142 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

About the author

Keiji Nakazawa (中沢啓治; Nakazawa Keiji) was born in Hiroshima and was in the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. All of his family members who had not evacuated died as a result of the explosion after they became trapped under the debris of their house, except for his mother, as well as an infant sister who died several weeks afterward. In 1961, Nakazawa moved to Tokyo to become a full-time cartoonist, and produced short pieces for manga anthologies such as Shōnen Gaho, Shōnen King, and Bokura.
Following the death of his mother in 1966, Nakazawa returned to his memories of the destruction of Hiroshima and began to express them in his stories. Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain), the first of a series of five books, was a fictional story of Hiroshima survivors involved in the postwar black market. Nakazawa chose to portray his own experience directly in the 1972 story Ore wa Mita, published in Monthly Shōnen Jump. The story was translated into English and published as a one-shot comic book by Educomics as I Saw It.
Immediately after completing I Saw It, Nakazawa began his major work, Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen).This series, which eventually filled ten volumes, was based on the same events as I Saw It but fictionalized, with the young Gen as a stand-in for the author. Barefoot Gen depicted the bombing and its aftermath in graphic detail, with Gen's experiences being even more harrowing than Nakazawa's own. It also turned a critical eye on the militarization of Japanese society during World War II and on the sometimes abusive dynamics of the traditional family. Barefoot Gen was adapted into two animated films and a live action TV drama.
Nakazawa announced his retirement in September 2009, citing deteriorating diabetes and cataract conditions.He cancelled plans for a Barefoot Gen sequel. In September 2010, Nakazawa was diagnosed with lung cancer and in July 2011, metastasis from lung cancer was found. He died on December 19, 2012.

Reviews

[Angélique (MapleBooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'avais six ans à Hiroshima est un mémoire atroce, une lecture difficile dont les images se fixent à l'esprit et n'en sortiront plus jamais. C'est un ouvrage dont la lecture est absolument indispensable. On ne peut prétendre avoir un avis sur l'usage du nucléaire avant d'en avoir lu les effets concrets, réels, vécus par une victime.
L'édition "Cherche Midi" que j'ai lu a en outre une annexe très intéressante sur le fonctionnement des bombes atomiques, la très belle préface pacifiste écrite en 1995, et un appel au désarmement.
Vivement conseillé, mais preparez-vous mentalement.