Atomic Bomb Literature

hibakusha literature-(原爆文学, genbaku bungaku).

Doomsday Clock

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists focuses on three main areas: nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. What connects these topics is a driving belief that because humans created them, we can control them.¹ It hosts the Doomsday Clock.

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies.

Hibakusha literature" or "atomic bomb literature" (原爆文学, genbaku bungaku).

Hibakusha is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb.² provided the first comprehensive survey in English of atomic-bomb literature in Japan through the 1980s. The book attempted to establish a theoretical and critical framework to define atomic-bomb literature as a genre, and sets out the central issues confronting writers who must try to represent the horror of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ³

Alison Fincher at her blog, “Alison Fincher Reads Japanese Lit,⁴ states “Kenzaburo Oe edited one of the most important anthologies of atomic bomb literature, The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath.” She provides a list of Genbaku Bungaku (“Atomic Bomb Literature”).⁵

• Listen to Podcast: Atomic Bomb Literature.

Nihon Hidankyo - Nobel Peace Prize 2024

"for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again"

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.⁶

Here is the Nobel Prize lecture delivered by Terumi Tanaka, Oslo, 10 December 2024.

1. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

2. Treat, John Whittier. 1995. Writing Ground Zero : Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

3. Washburn, Dennis. “Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb.” The Journal of Japanese studies 1996: 188–193.

4. Alison Fincher reads Japanese Lit. Japanese Atomic Literature.

5. Ibid. Some examples:

Yoko Ota (Hiroshima)

• City of Corpses in Hiroshima: Three Witnesses (translated by Richard H. Minear)

• “Fireflies” (translated by Koichi Nakagawa) in The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath

• “Hiroshima, City of Doom” (translated by Richard H. Minear) in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

Kyoko Hayashi (Nagasaki)

• The Empty Can” (translated by Margaret Mitsutani) in The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath

6. Thank you Rachel Cousins in comments for reminding us all of this. I’ve edited the post to include the Nobel Peace Prize lecture delivered by Terumi Tanaka, Oslo, 10 December 2024.