Hiroshima: Three Witnesses

by Richard H. Minear (Translator)

"I'll search you out, put my lips to your tender ear, and tell you. . . . I'll tell you the real story--I swear I will."--from Little One by Toge Sankichi


Three Japanese authors of note--Hara Tamiki, Ota Yoko, and Toge Sankichi--survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima only to shoulder an appalling bearing witness to ultimate horror. Between 1945 and 1952, in prose and in poetry, they published the premier first-person accounts of the atomic holocaust. Forty-five years have passed since August 6, 1945, yet this volume contains the first complete English translation of Hara's Summer Flowers , the first English translation of Ota's City of Corpses , and a new translation of Toge's Poems of the Atomic Bomb . No reader will emerge unchanged from reading these works. Different from each other in their politics, their writing, and their styles of life and death, Hara, Ota, and Toge were alike in feeling compelled to set down in writing what they experienced. Within forty-eight hours of August 6, before fleeing the city for shelter in the hills west of Hiroshima, Hara jotted down this "Miraculously unhurt; must be Heaven's will that I survive and report what happened." Ota recorded her own remarks to her half-sister as they walked down a street littered with "I'm looking with two sets of eyesthe eyes of a human being and the eyes of a writer." And the memorable words of Toge quoted above come from a poem addressed to a child whose father was killed in the South Pacific and whose mother died on August 6th--who would tell of that day? The works of these three authors convey as much of the "real story" as can be put into words.

Genres: Japan, History, Poetry, Nonfiction, War, Memoir, World War II

416 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 1990

About the author

Richard H. Minear is an American historian and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in modern Japanese history. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968 and taught courses on Japanese history and Hiroshima for many years. Minear is best known for Victors' Justice, a seminal study of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. He has lived extensively in Japan and translated numerous Japanese works into English. In 1999, he brought renewed attention to Dr. Seuss wartime political cartoons by editing and publishing them.

Reviews

[Alstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I mostly skipped the poems.

[šimon betina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read the City of Corpses by Ota Yoko. She is extremely personal and her account of the events and afterevents is painfully vivid. She focuses on little details, tells the story of every passerby, describes every dead or dying child by the road. Japanese literature tends to make me sad, but when you know that it is a memoir of sorts of real and horrible event it saddens me even more.
Also, it made me realize that in war there are no bad and good guys. Nazis did what they did to Jew, Japanese dis what they did to Chinese, Americans wiped out two Japanese cities. There are no good guys in a war.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing testimonies of a forgotten tragedy.

[Valarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really respect Minear for taking the time to do this translation, as these are all important pieces of literature from postwar Japan.

[Devin Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just Read Ota Yoko's City of Corpses

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The experience of the writers, who were survivors, brings us to the moment of the tragedy. The readers can taste the ashes, feel the thirst of a city engulfed in flames and the heat of the bomb.