Hiroshima

Summary

On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan. This book, a masterpiece by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist John Hersey, reveals what happened on that day. Told through the memories of six survivors, it is a timeless, powerful, and compassionate document.

One hundred thousand people were killed in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Miraculously, these six survived: a Jesuit priest, a surgeon, a desk clerk, a Methodist pastor, a physician, and a tailor’s widow. Their stories reveal the extraordinary courage, unearthly terror, and devastating loss of the few who emerged, alive, from the shattered ruins of the city.

Forty years after the original publication of this celebrated classic, John Hersey returned to Hiroshima to find the survivors he interviewed—and to tell you their fates. What he discovered is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.