Charlotte Eubanks

It often seems that 20th century Japan has two histories: one that ends in August 1945 and one that begins in August 1945. In the first history, Japan is a rapidly modernizing maritime nation with colonial ambitions, a self-defined 'people of the sea' (umi no min). In the second, Japan is a rapidly growing consumer culture seeking to lead the world as the first constitutionally pacifist nation. I find this fascinating and am working on a book about how the nuclear disaster of August 6, 1945 served as a pivotal moment of national re-imagining. Pikadon tells one story of August 6, 1945 from the point of view of an atomic bomb survivor. It is at turns a tender, and a devastating, read.