Reviews for Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War

by Susan Southard

Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Does the world need another volume on the atomic bombings of Japan? Even the smallest college library surely owns several works on the subject. It may come as a surprise, then, to read a recommendation urging that all collections add this poignant volume from Southard. In addition to being eminently readable (the author's background is in creative writing rather than academia), there are several other features of this book that set it apart in a crowded field. For one, it focuses exclusively on the second atomic bombing, which has received scant attention compared to Hiroshima, and thus makes it one of a very, very few works focusing on the subject. Moreover, the author's concerns stretch well beyond the initial event into the decades that followed. Southard draws largely from interviews--remarkably conducted in Japanese, by the author--with survivors, or hibakusha, who have now had a lifetime to grapple with the physical and psychological aftereffects of the bombing. Her findings are at once universal and personal; by staying close to the narratives of lived experience, readers are better able to comprehend the monumental tragedy as a whole. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Todd S. Munson, Randolph-Macon College


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Intense, deeply detailed, and compassionate account of the atomic bomb's effects on the people and city of Nagasaki, then and now. The generation of hibakusha, or atomic-bomb survivors, is sadly passing away, as journalist and artistic director Southard (Essential Theatre, Tempe, Arizona) acknowledges in her tracking of the experiences of five who were teenagers in the once-thriving port city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. As the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb over Nagasaki approaches, the author aims to enlighten her American audience, whose largely unequivocal stance about the rightness of forcing Japan to capitulate and the ignorance regarding radiation exposure the U.S. government took great pains to promote have kept readers unaware, she believes, of the magnitude of this nuclear annihilation"a scale that defies imagination." These five teenagers, and many like them, had all been enlisted in the war effort, as had their families in Nagasaki, one of Japan's first Westernized cities, containing the largest Christian population. One of the teens delivered mail, one was a streetcar operator, and several worked in the Mitsubishi factories that lined the river. When the bomb obliterated the Urakami Valley, where many of them lived, all lost family members and were horribly injured and scarred for life. Southard's descriptions stick to the eyewitness accounts of these and other survivors, and they are tremendously moving, nearly unbearable to read, and accompanied by gruesome photos. She alternates first-person accountse.g., reports by the Japanese doctors who first treated the burns and identified the subsequent radiation "sickness"with an outline of the political developments at the war's conclusion. The author emphasizes the postwar censorship imposed by the U.S. occupying force in Japan regarding the discussion of the bombing or radiation effects (see George Weller's First into Nagasaki), as well as the bravery of the hibakusha, who were determined to speak the truth. A valiant, moving work of research certain to provoke vigorous discussion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


Library Journal
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Published to mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this account is an investigation of the decades-long impact of the explosion that defined the end of World War II. Using the first-person narratives of hibakusha ("bomb-affected people"), playwright Southard (formerly creative writing, Arizona State Univ.) works her way from the morning of August 9, 1945 through the occupation and escalation of the Cold War to reveal the horrific destruction that was censored in both Japan and America for decades. While the bulk of the investigation relies on the story of the survivors who were caught in the explosion, Southard's documentation of the censorship of images and film depicting the after effects and medical tests run during the occupation reveals a darker side of America's military occupation after the war. This book provides the material and personal stories of one of the darkest days in human history. Southard's research uncovers the way the American military mistreated Japanese citizens and provided misinformation about the results of nuclear blasts to the rest of the world. VERDICT One of the definitive histories of the end of World War II. Essential.-John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Southard, founder and director of the Arizona-based Essential Theatre, presents a vivid (if gruesome) group portrait of five hibakusha, or "atomic bomb affected people," 70 years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her long acquaintance with the survivors and facility with the Japanese language result in an invaluable snapshot of that harrowing moment in history. Opening with a description of Nagasaki circa 1945, "an L-shaped city built along two rivers," Southard dramatically depicts how its 240,000 residents toiled to support a hopeless military effort. The Japanese had been deluded into believing that Nagasaki would be spared, as it was home to "the largest Christian community in the nation." Zeroing in on the crucial event, Southard movingly focuses on her subjects' experiences against the backdrop of the Manhattan Project, the whitewashing of the bombing's aftermath by the U.S. government, and the tug-of-war over autopsy specimens, which was finally resolved in 1973 by President Nixon. While the hibakusha initially chose to remain silent, a doctor named Akizuki Tatsuichiro pushed for transparency, organizing the Nagasaki Testimonial Society. This group, having reached old age, continues to share stories at public events around the world. Southard offers valuable new information and context, and her work complements John Hersey's 1946 classic, Hiroshima. Photos. Agent: Richard Balkin, Ward & Balkin Agency. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.