Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb

by John Whittier Treat

From Einstein and Truman to Sartre and Derrida, many have declared the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be decisive events in human history. None, however, have more acutely understood or perceptively critiqued the consequences of nuclear war than Japanese writers. In this first complete study of the nuclear theme in Japanese intellectual and artistic life, John Whittier Treat shows how much we have to learn from Japanese writers and artists about the substance and meaning of the nuclear age.

Treat recounts the controversial history of Japanese public discourse around Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a discourse alternatively celebrated and censored—from August 6, 1945, to the present day. He includes works from the earliest survivor writers, including Hara Tamiki and Ota Yoko, to such important Japanese intellectuals today as Oe Kenzaburo and Oda Makoto. Treat argues that the insights of Japanese writers into the lessons of modern atrocity share much in common with those of Holocaust writers in Europe and the practitioners of recent poststructuralist nuclear criticism in America. In chapters that take up writers as diverse as Hiroshima poets, Tokyo critics, and Nagasaki women novelists, he explores the implications of these works for critical, literary, and cultural theory.

Treat summarizes the Japanese contribution to such ongoing international debates as the crisis of modern ethics, the relationship of experience to memory, and the possibility of writing history. This Japanese perspective, Treat shows, both confirms and amends many of the assertions made in the West on the shift that the death camps and nuclear weapons have jointly signaled for the modern world and for the future.

Writing Ground Zero will be read not only by students of Japan, but by all readers concerned with the fate of culture after the fact of nuclear war in our time.

Genres: Japan, History, Japanese Literature

508 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 1995

About the author

John Whittier Treat has published Pushcart Prize-nominated short stories in A&U Magazine, Jonathan and QDA: Queer Disability Anthology. His poetry is included in the 2017 anthology of Washington State poets, Washington 129. His 2015 novel about the AIDS pandemic in Seattle, The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Gay Fiction award. In 2020 JMS Books published Treat’s novella about Provincetown, Maid Service; in 2022, Jaded Ibis Press will publish his novel about speech disability, First Consonants. Treat’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Out, and LitHub.

Reviews

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants a comprehensive survey of hibakusha literature (keeping in mind the book was written in 1995) as well as the status of hibakusha literature within Japanese literature more broadly. The book is also an excellent way to sample hibakusha literature. The book has excerpts from many works of hibakusha literature, and Treat’s passion for the topic comes out beautifully in his writing.

The one reservation I have with this book is that it may be too long and dense for casual readers or those looking for a much simpler introduction to hibakusha literature. The book is thoroughly a work of academic literature. This was the second time reading this book and I’m a little ashamed to admit I didn’t understand all the points Treat makes. That being said, I was glad I picked it up a second time, if only to digest certain ideas a bit more.