Hiroshima Diary - by Michihiko Hachiya (Paperback)

About the Book

Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6-September 30, 1945

Book Synopsis

The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. His compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was a surgical consultant to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and who became a friend of Dr. Hachiya. In a new foreword, John Dower reflects on the enduring importance of the diary fifty years after the bombing.

Review Quotes

"Although Hiroshima Diary is necessarily full of horrors, it is not a depressing book. Frightening certainly; but the courage, patience, unselfishness, and resourcefulness it records would make the grimmest misanthrope proud of the human race." --Atlantic Monthly

"An extraordinary literary event." --New York Times

"One of the most extraordinary records of human calamity and courage in the history of letters." --Newsweek