Hiroshima

published	March 4th 1989 by Vintage
binding	Mass Market Paperback
isbn	0679721037 (isbn13: 9780679721031)
pages	160
description	When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey rec...more [close] When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and, in 1946, Hiroshima was published, giving the world first-hand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response. Whether you believe the bomb made the difference in the war or that it should never have been dropped, "Hiroshima" is a must read for all of us who live in the shadow of armed conflict. [close]
date added	01-03-07 edit book

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Irene rated it:

05/22/08

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Irene by: Erika

This story was published in 1946, just one year after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. With exquisitely captured yet mundane details, Hersey tells how six ordinary folks who ultimately survived the catastrophe were going about their business when the bomb dropped. “The frequency of the warnings and the continued abstinence of Mr. B [B-29 bombers] with respect to Hiroshima had made its citizens jittery; a rumor was going around that the Americans were saving something special f...more This story was published in 1946, just one year after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. With exquisitely captured yet mundane details, Hersey tells how six ordinary folks who ultimately survived the catastrophe were going about their business when the bomb dropped. “The frequency of the warnings and the continued abstinence of Mr. B [B-29 bombers] with respect to Hiroshima had made its citizens jittery; a rumor was going around that the Americans were saving something special for the city.”

Several pages later, “Everything fell, and Miss Sasaki lost consciousness. The ceiling dropped suddenly and the wooden floor above collapsed in splinters and the people up there came down and the roof above them gave way; but principally and first of all, the bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking beneath her. There in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

I first read this book in high school, in the early 1960’s, and decided to read it again when I read Erika’s comments about it. The Wilmette Public Library has two copies, one shelved in the adult non-fiction section, and the other in the youth section. Is it still assigned reading in English classes? Or perhaps history classes?

What did I remember when I read the book again? Certainly this image: “...there were about twenty men, and they were all in exactly the same nightmarish state: their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks...Their mouths were mere swollen, pus-covered wounds, which they could not bear to stretch enough to admit the spout of the teapot. So Father Kleinsorge got a large piece of grass and drew out the stem so as to make a straw, and gave them all water to drink that way. One of them said, ‘I can’t see anything.’ Father Kleinsorge answered, as cheerfully as he could, “There’s a doctor at the entrance to the park. He’s busy now, but he’ll come soon and fix your eyes, I hope.’”

Now as I read the book, I kept thinking about how there must be thousands of similar stories about the people caught in two present disasters, the aftermaths of the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in Szechuan. Similar, because each has been caught in the midst of sudden devastation that was totally beyond their control. Different, of course, in that the bomb was dropped as a result of a conscious decision by humans, whereas cyclones and hurricanes are “natural”. Similar, in the incredible humanity of so many of those who survive, each bringing the strength of their individual quirks to the task, some heroic, some not so much. Some, of course, give up. I wonder what I would do.

Different also in the resources that are brought in for “rescue” and reconstruction. The Americans occupied Japan, bringing a huge influx of dollars and expertise to rebuild, partly to avoid the repercussions of economic collapse, but certainly also to assuage the guilt of inflicting such unprecedented destruction. The Chinese seem to be pulling out all stops to help the earthquake victims, with unprecedented access being given to the press. Are the motives humanitarian or taking advantage of a public relations opportunity? Does it matter? And then there are the Burmese dictators, fending off all credible efforts to help the devastated flood victims as the stunned world helplessly watches.
The present book differs from the one I first read, because in 1985, Hersey wrote a final chapter. In it we learn about the ne
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Mellyana rated it:

07/17/07

bookshelves: narrative-journalism

Read in May, 2007

Membaca Hiroshima, membuat aku lupa aku sedang membaca sebuah laporan. Serasa baca novel. Fiksi. Apa ya istilahnya, page turner. Aku sulit berhenti membacanya. Padahal, aku mulai membaca jam 11 malam, dan sampai jam 12 malam, aku masih bersemangat menyelesaikan Hiroshima.

Oya, aku musti bilang, aku tidak suka cerita perang. Aku tidak suka film perang. Kalau aku menonton film perang, syarat utama adalah film itu harus memiliki gambar yang bagus. Bukan gambar indah, tapi gambar yang bagus, gamb...more Membaca Hiroshima, membuat aku lupa aku sedang membaca sebuah laporan. Serasa baca novel. Fiksi. Apa ya istilahnya, page turner. Aku sulit berhenti membacanya. Padahal, aku mulai membaca jam 11 malam, dan sampai jam 12 malam, aku masih bersemangat menyelesaikan Hiroshima.

Oya, aku musti bilang, aku tidak suka cerita perang. Aku tidak suka film perang. Kalau aku menonton film perang, syarat utama adalah film itu harus memiliki gambar yang bagus. Bukan gambar indah, tapi gambar yang bagus, gambar yang kuat, warna yang kuat. Tapi, tanpa darah bercucuran. Aduh, kalau pakai darah, mendingan aku tutup mata saja, deh. Aku juga tidak suka membaca cerita perang. Capek. Kesal. Marah. Ingin menangis. Sesak. Napasku betul betul sesak.

Untuk Hiroshima, semua perkataan di atas harus aku tarik. Hiroshima, bercerita tentang perang, tanpa harus mengumbar kekerasan perang dengan kata-kata yang keras dan menyakitkan. Justru dengan kata-kata yang terlihat lembut, kekejaman dan kekerasan peristiwa itu begitu kuat. Memukau.

Membaca Hiroshima, seperti menonton Hiroshima. Tapi, aku tidak sedang berbicara tentang Film Hiroshima yang disutradai Koreyoshi Kurahara dan Roger Spottiswoode, aku sedang membaca Hiroshima yang ditulis oleh John Hersey.

Bagian-bagian awal tulisan, Hersey bergantian bercerita tentang orang-orang yang berbeda di lokasi yang berbeda. Kalau ini film, aku suka sekali gaya seperti ini. Model Pulp Fiction atau Love Actually. Di awal bacaan belum kelihatan, apa sih kaitan satu tokoh dengan tokoh lain. Tidak lama, akan segera diketahui, bagaimana keseluruh tokoh adalah “hibakusha”, survivor, mereka yang lolos dari bom atom yang dijatuhkan di Hiroshima.

Semuanya begitu detail. Kegiatan para hibakusha itu sebelum, pada saat, dan setelah kejadian. Apa yang sedang mereka pakai, bahkan apa yang sedang mereka pikirkan. Bagaimana tiap cerita bergantian tertulis, tanpa terasa ada jeda atau pergantian orang dan tempat. Sungguh, sulit membayangkan ini adalah hasil wawancara. Sulit melihat ini bukan fiksi, bukan rekayasa. Bagaimana bisa John Hersey mengingat semuanya seperti ini?

Tunggu, aku rubah pertanyaaannya. Bagaimana bisa John Hersey bercerita seakan-akan dia ada di dalam hati dan jiwa tiap tiap tokohnya, dan seakan-akan dia mengalami semuanya. Aku tidak tahu. Bagaimana dia bisa melakukannya.

Sayang, aku tidak akan bisa hadir di kelas yang membahas Hiroshima. And I hate that so much. Aku ingin tahu, apa yang akan dibahas. Aku ingin tahu, bagaimana tulisan ini bisa dibuat sebegitu rupa. Aku berharap, bisa memperoleh cerita dari siapapun yang hadir saat itu, dan membuat aku merasa seakan-akan aku hadir di kelas (walaupun saat itu aku ada di seberang pulau), sebagaimana John Hersey membuat aku seakan-akan hadir di Hiroshima, di tahun 1945.
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Mateo rated it:

03/19/08

Read in March, 2008

about a month ago during (i suppose) a particularly stressful night i had a dream that my father and i had survived the dropping of an atomic bomb on some unnamed city. i remember very clear ducking behind a large rock as the shockwave went past, and the eery silence that accompanied the flash that radiated out from the bomb. in the dream it wasn't clear that surviving was the better option.

it made me realize that i hadn't thought about the fact the united states still is the only country t...more about a month ago during (i suppose) a particularly stressful night i had a dream that my father and i had survived the dropping of an atomic bomb on some unnamed city. i remember very clear ducking behind a large rock as the shockwave went past, and the eery silence that accompanied the flash that radiated out from the bomb. in the dream it wasn't clear that surviving was the better option.

it made me realize that i hadn't thought about the fact the united states still is the only country to have done that to a city. its not something that makes it into my consciousness on a regular basis, and i can see why. i don't like the idea, and it makes me feel agitated to think about it.

nonetheless when i was staying over at my parent's house last night and i found this book on the shelf of the guest room i cracked it open and stayed up until i had finished it. so much for getting to sleep early for once. this book uses the technique of following six different people's experience from the moments of ignorance before the bomb (the all-clear siren had rung as no flock of b-29's was spotted in the area), through the week of waiting for help amidst the rotting of dead and living alike, and onto the popularization of a new disease called 'radiation sickness'. it is a quite readable, narrative-based document, not any more grotesque than it needs to be, that also deals with the different ways these various people dealt with the situation of not being the most seriously wounded, from apathy to cliquishness to christian zeal.

there are moments where i begin to question the validity of the accounts, at least of the motives of the people involved as explained to mr. hersey. i also wondered why there seemed to be a lop-sided lean towards recounting the travails of japanese christians, german jesuits, and their employees and churches, but i suppose that it could have helped illicit sympathy in a still not-totally-sympathetic american audience. journalism will always be manipulative, but this account was plenty balanced and comprehensive to make it a really worthwhile read, and makes me much more curious now to trace the developments that have ensued in the aftermath of this tragedy....less

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Patrick rated it:

02/25/08

Read in February, 2008

Meh. I sort of wish I had read a different book about the bombing of Hiroshima. This book is a dramatized account of the experience of six survivors of the first use of an atom bomb.

The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened,...more Meh. I sort of wish I had read a different book about the bombing of Hiroshima. This book is a dramatized account of the experience of six survivors of the first use of an atom bomb.

The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened, rather than venture to guess precisely what had been said at certain moments or exactly how the survivors felt.

A lot of questions are left unanswered in regard to how the author even found this set of survivors that happened to all know and effect each other's lives from time to time.

On the positive tip, It did get the job done. I wanted to know exactly what it was like on the day that the bomb was dropped, and this book did that.

I just have no idea how the author of this book ever became a professor at Yale. It was awkwardly written, sometimes had seemingly made up words in it, and at one point was just plain inappropriate in my opinion.

at one point in the book, it reads something like this:

Soandso took a breath, closed his eyes, and died.
[line break and new paragraph]
Or so Soandoso thought, but he woke up the following morning still in the hospital.

First of all, that is a really cheap dramatic trick, like a joke from a bad sitcom. Second, this is a real person we are talking about, and a person who had suffered for decades from ailments resulting one of the most murderous atrocities ever recorded. If it were fiction, then I can see the need to drum up some intensity, or have some comic relief, whichever way you want to look at it. But I just thought that was a childish thing to write.

Overall, it was an alright book, but as I said above, if I hadn't gotten this book for free, I would have done a little research and found some non-dramatized firsthand accounts of the bombing.

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Faustess rated it:

05/07/08

bookshelves: non-fiction-megalist

Read in October, 2005

Hiroshima by John Hersey has become a required reading book for many high schools. I think part of that is due to its brevity, which makes it more likely that teenagers will read it. However, its subject matter - the stories of several survivors of the US bombing of Hiroshima is not light. Hersey depicts the moments before and after the bombing as well as following up on the later lives of each person depicted.

The book is not as poignant as The Diary of Anne Frank. It almost seems as though ...more

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Susan rated it:

06/05/08

bookshelves: advisory-books-07-08

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

SUMMER BOOK:
During the 1940s, an atomic bomb was dropped on the grounds of Japan in main cities, Hiroshima&Nagasaki. The description of what happened during this time& period was so realistic and clear. The Americans dropped a massive atomic bomb on December 7, 1941 unexpectedly on the Japanese. It was justlike any other day that the Japanese did not expect anything bad, however it soon became the most tramatizing event in Japan history. Millions of people died when the first bomb was ...more

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Susie rated it:

04/04/08

Read in March, 2008

In order to stave off the monotony of watching my students conduct library research, I picked this book up off the workroom shelves last week (I had finished grading my most recent set of essays two days earlier). I've wanted to read the book for quite some time, as it had been recommended by a friend and former colleague and it provides a different perspective on my recent obsession with the Pacific War. The organization of the book itself reminded me of another work I teach, Thorton Wilder's f...more

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Musho rated it:

09/30/07

bookshelves: advisory

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: history fans

This is one of my favortie books because it deals with a very devastating event that occured in the world's history. This book talks about the tragic events that occured in Hiroshima through perspectives of several different people. One of the characters was Ms. Sasaki. She worked in a tin factory and in the moment of the droping of the bomb she was working there when she was crushed by a shelve full of books and metals. She had no chance of surviving and so did many of the Japanese. I l...more

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Loraine rated it:

06/11/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in December, 2006

This book vividly paints a picture of what it was like to withness an atomic bomb explosion and survive its effects, through the personal story of six survivors of the Hiroshima attack. As with many disasters -- though somehow I did not expect it from this one -- more people died and suffered from the aftermath (fires, starvation and thirst, untreated injuries, not to mention radiation sickness) than from the explosion itself. The stories of the camps that formed spontaneously, the attempts of...more

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Léa rated it:

10/12/07

bookshelves: advisory2007-2008

Read in August, 2007

This book was written by the journalist John Hersey. He follows the life of six survivors of the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Some of the characters knew each other. It tells about all the problems these people had because of the bomb, their return to an almost normal life...The last chapter tells what happend 40 years later.
What I liked about this book,is how it tells the story of the A-bomb, trough the personal experiences of six different people. What I didn't like about it was the way i...more

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Henry rated it:

01/05/08

bookshelves: advisorybook07-08

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: Anyone

This book was a great book that help gave me sort of a first hand view on the attack on Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. It made me realize how dramatic it was and how scary it must had been for the many that were killed in the attack and those who had saw it first hand. This is a life changing book and it will help everyone who reads the book to see how everyone had lived before the attack, during the attack and after the attack.Because of this attack, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has t...more

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Tim rated it:

04/07/08

Read in April, 2008

Shortly after World War II, John Hersey traveled to Japan to interview survivors of the first atomic bomb. Like so many author’s who’ve followed him, Hersey attempted to gather the stories of the refugees who fled, as well as those who stayed in the immediate aftermath, in order to understand the impact the bomb had on the city’s citizens.

The six survivor’s he interviewed provided stark accounts that give an entirely different dimension to the rather bland, almost scientific, repo...more

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Ryan rated it:

06/09/07

May we never ever unleash such great violence again, even when provoked. Although so many argue that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the least violent methods of stopping Militaristic Axis Japan, the ensuing chaos, horrific violence, and complete incineration of Japan; proves to me that there should have been another path. The book provides brutal accounts of the bloody aftermath afterwhich the bombs were dropped over Japan, and countless men, women, and children were left dead,...more

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Ginnie rated it:

(review of isbn 014118437X)

05/28/08

bookshelves: history, war

recommended to Ginnie by: Happyreader

I read this in its original form in The New Yorker where for the first time an entire issue was turned over to a single article. As I commented to Happyreader concerning her review of this book, "I was one of those reading Hiroshima just a year after the war ended and was completely blown away. In one of life's many ironies, the man I later married had been assigned as an Navy x-ray technician to a combination troop carrier/hospital ship scheduled for the U.S. invasion of Jap...more

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Happyreader rated it:

(review of isbn 014118437X)

05/08/08

bookshelves: asian, history-politics

Read in December, 2004

I can't imagine what New Yorker readers thought reading this just a year after WWII ended. For me, it was harrowing, gripping and fascinating. I read it all in a single afternoon. Hersey personalizes the nuclear attack by recounting the experiences of some everyday civilians in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped.

I actually read this in the The Complete New Yorker. One advantage to reading it there is that it also includ...more

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YiShun rated it:

07/11/08

in today's market, it's hard to believe that there was once a space for novella-length magazine articles. i've always been a fan of these, and this is definitely one of the absolute best. originally published in the New Yorker in 1945, this is journalism in my favorite form: it tells the story of the months following the dropping of the H-bomb on Hiroshima through the stories of six very different survivors.
i don't know how Hersey found these survivors, and i'm planning on doing some more fol...more

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Tom rated it:

08/15/07

Read in October, 1998

recommends it for: Everyone

What I love about this book is that the author manages to paint a very vivid picture of what it was like in Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb was dropped (and the days following as well), without really giving his opinion of whether or not the bomb should or shouldn't have been dropped at all!

This is a true account of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It is riveting, terrifying and at times sickening.

After reading this one can't help but ponder how mankind manages to inflict suc...more

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Che rated it:

12/24/07

This book should be mandatory reading in schools. It tells the stories of six people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and what took place in the days following the explosion. People were pulling potatoes that got cooked from the heat of the bomb out of the ground and eating them. People had the patterns of their dresses burned into their skin. Those who were looking at the sky when the bomb went off had their eyeballs melt in their heads. The raindrops that fell after the explosion were the...more

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dianne rated it:

(review of isbn 014118437X)

08/08/07

Read in August, 2007

i read this on August 6 - Hiroshima day each year.
it is a first edition (1946) given to me by a friend whose war-and violence loving father was stationed in Asia during my friend's childhood. he didn't want Asia / war / or his father around - so i inherited this unbelievably touching, human portrait of average, and not so average Japanese on the morning of August 6th 1945 - and what they went through for the next weeks. i think it is so important for me to remember that the USA is the only cou...more

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Chicklet rated it:

09/01/07

bookshelves: historical, nonfiction

recommends it for: anyone

I learned a great deal about the affects of an atomic bomb from this book.
This book is dry...like reading a newspaper article. Despite this, I think it would be a good thing if everyone at least read portions of Hiroshima. I think most people would walk away from this non-fiction book with no desire to ever inflict such harm.
I learned that plastic surgery's roots are in Hiroshima's aftermath. Is this part of why Hiroshima was set off, or pure kindness?
Hiroshima dispells the stup...more

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