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12 — BOOKS
Further Reading
Books for getting to know Hiroshima's history and people more deeply — literature and records of the atomic bomb, manga portraying the people who lived in the naval port of Kure, the last days of the battleship Yamato, and the literature of the Inland Sea's port towns. For before your trip, and after it.
6 August 1945
Black Rain (Kuroi Ame)
A novel that portrays that day and the memory of the "black rain" by following one family's diaries, centred on the marriage prospects of a niece who was exposed to the bomb. It was written drawing on the diaries of hibakusha, among other sources (the 6 August 1945 room).
Summer Flower (Natsu no Hana)
A short story in which a writer who survived the bombing at his family home records the state of the city immediately afterwards. It is regarded as one of the founding works of atomic-bomb literature.
Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen)
A manga based on the author's own experience of the bombing. Translated into many languages, it is read all over the world.
Hiroshima
A work of reportage by an American journalist, based on interviews with six hibakusha who survived. Published in a magazine in 1946, it caused a great stir in the United States.
The naval port of Kure and the battleship Yamato
In This Corner of the World (Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni)
A manga portraying the wartime daily life of a young woman who marries from Hiroshima City into a family in Kure. Life in the naval port town, the air raids of 1945 and 6 August are all depicted with great care. It was also made into an animated film (the Kure room).
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni)
A manga portraying Hiroshima ten years after the bombing, and the generations that followed. With a quiet touch, it looks at what the atomic bomb left behind.
Requiem for Battleship Yamato (Senkan Yamato no Saigo)
A work of documentary literature by an author who served aboard the Yamato and survived. It depicts the Yamato's final sortie in April 1945 in classical literary Japanese.
The port towns of the Inland Sea
Diary of a Vagabond (Horoki)
A diary-like work that the author kept writing as she drifted from place to place in poverty. It portrays the sea and streets of Onomichi, where she spent her girlhood (the Port Towns room).
A Dark Night's Passing (An'ya Koro)
A long novel that draws on the author's experience of living in Onomichi. The scene in which the hero gazes out at the Inland Sea from his house in Onomichi is well known.
* Publishers and editions listed are representative. Availability may change if titles go out of print or new editions are released.