by John Hersey
First published 1946
John Hersey reconstructs August 6, 1945 through the experiences of six people who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He follows a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German Catholic priest from the moment the bomb exploded at 8:15 a.m. through the hours and days that followed. Hersey tracks their movements, injuries, and struggles in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Nearly four decades later, he returned to Japan to find these same individuals and learn how the bombing shaped their subsequent lives. The New Yorker published the original account in 1946, devoting an entire issue to the story. Radio networks broadcast it across America, and newspapers worldwide reprinted it. This Pulitzer Prize-winning work established how we understand nuclear warfare through personal testimony rather than statistics or policy analysis. Hersey offers readers direct access to history through individual human experience.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, non-fiction, journalism, american-history
Vibes: documentary-style, emotionally-resonant, haunting, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: before-and-after, historical-reconstruction, multiple-perspectives, oral-testimony
Setting: Hiroshima, Japan
Period: August 6, 1945, 1946, 20th century
196 pages · Paperback · Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, war