Hiroshima

‘A master class in eyewitness storytelling . . . As the events fade from living memory, Hiroshima is at once a brilliant tribute and a cautionary tale‘ Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario On 6 August 1945 the world changed forever when the Enola Gay dropped its deadly cargo over Hiroshima, ushering in the nuclear age. The hibakusha - Japanese for atomic bomb survivors - are the last witnesses alive who can still provide detailed testimony about that fateful day. M. G. Sheftall recreates what Hiroshima was like before the bomb, and how catastrophically its citizens‘ lives changed in the seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months and years afterwards. Through personal interviews with the hibakusha, he has gained unprecedented access to what they experienced on the day the city was obliterated, and what it has been like to live with those memories and scars for the rest of their lives. The result is a deeply human history of an unfathomable tragedy, which continues to haunt the world today. ‘Sheftall‘s sweeping, sensitive and deeply researched book is required reading for our human hearts‘ Washington Post ‘A gripping, moving story of fear and shame, courage and grace, and a powerful argument that we should never, ever use these weapons again‘ Evan Thomas, author of Road to Surrender