Preface

   This book is the revised edition of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Books Available in English (The Publication Center of the Chugoku Shimbun Newspaper, 2003). The aim of this online bibliography in Japanese and English is to reach a larger audience at home and abroad.

   This book consists of two parts. Part 1 is an annotated bibliography containing reviews of 446 English-language books concerning the devastation by atomic bomb(1) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, published from 1945 to 2003. These are classified into five genres: literature, juvenile literature, memoirs, graphic and photographic records, and research and reports. In each of the five categories, books are listed chronologically, and books written by the same author are listed together. When more than two books were published in one year, they are listed in the alphabetical order of the authors’ surnames. Books for which no specific author’s name is provided are listed in alphabetical order according to the English title of the book. For some books, with varied contents such as memoirs, poems, and essays, how they are classified depends on which genre predominates in the book.

   Part 2, chronologically introducing English-language books on Hiroshima and Nagasaki originally written by Japanese authors, discusses the process of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's globalization. Appended is a name index for the authors of the books introduced in Part 1.

   Since its initial publication, the annotated bibliography has been revised and enlarged three times. The original bibliography, entitled “A guide to A-bomb Literature available in English,” listed 44 books and was published in The New English Classroom, 1983. Its aim was to provide English teachers in Japan with a resource about English books in this field. The descriptions were written in Japanese. The second list of 78 books, entitled “Annotated Bibliography,” written in English, was included as an appendix to the book The Legacy of Hiroshima, 1986, translated by Tomoko Nakamura. The purpose of this version was to provide non-Japanese with information about A-bomb literature. The third list, this time of 183 books, was entitled “A-bomb literature: an annotated bibliography,” and was published in Hiroshima Handbook, 1995. This English and Japanese edition was intended for a larger audience, both in Japan and abroad.

   This latest annotated bibliography is a revised and enlarged edition of the one published in 1995. This bibliography adds: 1) books published in and after 1995, the year of the 50th anniversary of the bombings, 2) more books written by doctors, and 3) more books published in Nagasaki. One of the main purposes of the revision was to add information about publications produced in and after 1995. In this year, the A-bomb exhibition at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museums was scaled down as a result of political pressure and a protest campaign by American war veterans' organizations. This heated controversy about the pros and cons of having used atomic bombs in Japan resulted in a large number of publications in the United States. In relation to this, certain books which justify the use of atomic bombs were included in the bibliography.

   In contrast, aging A-bomb survivors have endeavored to leave their accounts of the experience while they are still alive. They believe that as survivors of the first atomic holocaust, they have a responsibility to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In many cases, voluntary translators who share their beliefs have worked with the survivors. This bibliography also contains more medical reports than versions published previously. Those selected were non-technical books which are accessible to general readers without a medical background. Largely due to people being contaminated by radiation, especially following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, there has been an increasing demand for the writings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors, with their knowledge and experience about radioactive diseases gained through 58 years of treating A-bomb survivors. Also included are approximately 50 books concerning the Nagasaki bombing kept at the Nagasaki A-bomb Museum Library.

   I aimed to work only from primary sources. Books were included in the list only when I gained access to them. A description of each book is provided, with, where relevant, details about its Japanese version. I made every effort to find books concerning Hiroshima and Nagasaki published from 1945 to 2003; however, there may still be many books left unlisted. If readers know of any such books, I would be delighted to receive information about them.

   It is not an easy task to define what atomic bomb literature is. Books are retrieved as follows. In information retrieval through the Internet, the key words, “Hiroshima,” and, or “Nagasaki,” are typed into search engines. Books with these key words in their titles or subtitles are sought out and listed. Also included are books which have chapters concerning the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The following Websites are the main information sources in searching for books through Internet.

CiNii Books:

Japanese Site: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/books/ English Site: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/books/?l=en

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Peace Database:

Japanese Site: http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/database/ English Site: http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/database/index_e.html

   CiNii Books is a retrieval service provided by the National Institute of Informatics, and provides a system for searching the general catalogs for books in university library collections in Japan. After finding which library is holding a particular book, I would order the book using the university libraries' reciprocal borrowing and lending system. Also, the database provided by Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is available for those who have registered at their website. When the museum had a book I was looking for, I read it in the reading room at the museum. The Internet bookstore, Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.jp) also provides valuable information about books. In addition to these ways of identifying and gaining access to books, I made use of the bibliographies at the end of each book.

   The library of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum keeps the greatest number of books on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, 65,580 books and magazines including 26,451 Japanese books and 3,190 books in 41 foreign languages as of March 31, 2017. The local book reference room in Hiroshima City Chuo Library is an open-shelf library which allows visitors to freely inspect the books. University libraries such as those of Hiroshima University, Hiroshima City University, Hiroshima Jogakuin University, and Hiroshima Shudo University are also available. Each library has an on-line searching system. In Nagasaki, the Nagasaki A-bomb Museum also has an open-shelf library with a database system.

   The Hiroshima, Nagasaki Memorial Collection of the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center (PRC) in Wilmington, Ohio, contributed by Barbara Reynolds, is the most extensive collection of atomic bomb-related materials in English and Japanese outside of Japan. The PRC holds 1,100 books related to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 625 of these books are Japanese-language scholarship, literature, fiction, and photographic collections regarding the atomic bombings published from the late 1940s until the present. 475 of their books are English-language scholarship, literature, poetry, and photographic collections regarding the atomic bombings from the late 1940s to the present. In addition, The PRC holds an archival collection (The Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives) that consists of 225 linear feet of historical documents related to atomic bombing survivors and the anti-nuclear peace movement from the 1950s-1980s. The Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives also contains several hundred photographs and roughly 40, 16-mm films dating back to the early 1950s regarding the Barbara Reynolds family as well as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Additionally, they hold reel to reel and audio cassette recordings of Barbara Reynolds as well as many atomic bombing survivors.

Wilmington College Peace Resource Center: https://www.wilmington.edu/the-wilmington-difference/prc/

   Many of the English books containing accounts written by atomic bomb survivors are not available at bookstores because they are published privately or by ad hoc committees rather than by commercial publishing houses. Finding out about such books and making them known is another purpose of this bibliography. Some authors not only replied to my queries, but also sent me copies of the books they had published. I would recommend that authors and publishers donate some copies of their books to public libraries or university libraries, so that through the Internet many more people may have access to information about the books.

   Far more people have given me help or encouragement than it is possible to mention. Among those who helped, however, by giving me precious advice, by letting me share information, or by sending me books they published are: Kimiko Aoyama, Sachiko Enami, Chieko Kurihara, Yasuhiko Shigemoto, Sueta Taguri, Shin Nishimoto, Yoko Hiyama, Haruko Moritaki, Kaeko Yamamoto, Masaya Yamauchi, and Mary Sisk Noguchi. Professor Satoru Ubuki, a historian and researcher of A-bomb literature at Hiroshima Jogakuin University, gave me precious advice on my present research as he did in 1995 for the previous version of the annotated bibliography.

   For the proofreading of the English part, I owe much to Timothy Gutierrez, my former colleague at Hiroshima International University, and James Ronald at Hiroshima Shudo University. Satoshi Nakamura, my husband, has given me encouragement in my publication plan as well as advice on the Japanese part. Akiko Yajima willingly typed my old manuscript for me.

   In making a website version of this book, I appreciated working with Tanya Maus, Wilmington College Peace Resource Center, Nancy Meyer, English proofreader, Mieko Yamada, Japanese and English proofreader, and Hiroshi Fujimura at OCLP, jp, IT consultant.

   I am grateful for a 2002 grant from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Fund for the publication of this book.

On the occasion of making the website edition of this book, November, 2017

Note: (1) To refer to the atomic bombs which caused the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, multiple terms are used throughout the documents such as “atomic bombs”, “A-bombs”, and simply “the bombs”. However, these terms all indicate the same thing, the two bombings which remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.