The book is about storyteller objects; objects that experienced the uranium bombing in Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
I happened to meet this brilliant poet at Japan Foundation New Delhi. He came there to deliver a talk about the same and read his poems. Interestingly enough, this is among some of those few works that has moved me emotionally and opened my eyes to the untold stories.
Arthur Binard is a well-known poet. He was born in Michigan in 1967. Is an American born in Ohio who got fascinated by Japanese twin ways of pronunciation went Tokyo after his graduation in English literature at Colgate University and began his studies in Japanese language. However, after just one semester of his studies in Ohio he took off and headed to Madras, in southeast India, to study the Tamil language. “I still hope to become fluent in Tamil someday,” he said, which is interesting for Indian readers to know. An interest in the ideogram led him to Japan where he now writes poetry and prose, in both English and Japanese. In 2001 he was awarded the Nakahara Chuya Prize for Tsuriagetewa, a book of his poems in Japanese. He received the Kodansha Essay Award for Nihongo Pokori-Pokori, and the Japan Picturebook Prize for Home is Here, Ben Shahn’s Lucky Dragon and also won the Yamamoto Kenkichi Literature Prize in 2008. And he is also a Winner of the Kodansha Award for Picture Books, 2013.
And the man behind artistically capturing the pictures displayed in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is Tadashi Okakura.
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first installed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. After arriving at the U.S. base on the Pacific island of Tinian, the more than 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets). The plane dropped the bomb–known as “Little Boy”–by parachute at 8:15 in the morning, and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and instantly killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
Hiroshima’s destruction failed to draw immediate Japanese surrender. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito pronounced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” On August 9 Major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, Bockscar, from Tinian. Thick clouds over the primary target, the city of Kokura, drove Sweeney to a secondary target, Nagasaki, where the plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than the one used at Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22-kiloton blast. The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bomb’s effect, limiting the obliteration to 2.6 square miles.
This book entitled Sagashiteimasu is originally written in Japanese, translated into Hindi language as “Main Dhoondh Raha Hoon” [in English "I'm Searching"] by Tadashi Okakura and the English version is under process.
A clogged wall clock of a barber shop, power glasses of a man who ran a bag shop, a pair of gloves of a 12 years old boy worked in construction project, lunchbox of a small school girl, Keys of a prison, Shoes of a child labour, cap of a school boy stuck in his head, steps of a bank after attack completely disappeared; all charred by radioactive ways of uranium bomb searching for its owners who disappeared in the bombing.
The pictures below are among the fourteen ordinary daily used items, all atomic-bombed on August 6 1945, printed in this photography book as “storytellers,” each one illuminating its tale to the unaware readers of a disastrous scene. Since the morning of that day when Pika-don (in Japanese, the atomic bomb but literally a great light) was plummeted on Hiroshima, these objects are seen as though they have been searching for the lives they once embodied in daily routine, now seems to have been vanished uninformed.
Apparently, American bombed Japan with fire bomb and killed 100000 people, however, the place which was targeted was not an imperial palace or any center of military or finance or political figures but slums that incorporated poor group of people. This proves that the attacks were not destined towards ending the war.
Usually when we see a bomb as an outsider we notice a mushroom cloud or jellyfish or cauliflower cloud but at its core people scorched to death by 4000 degree Celsius, whereas 40 degree makes us uncomfortable.
Author argues that Atom bomb is a completely mistaken name of this device, however, it’s used because it's good for the marketing propaganda for increase in sale. When you drop a bomb you are not splitting atoms but nucleus.
Press code regulated by American government in Hiroshima prohibited any talk on this vile event until 1950s. Even there were raids on exhibitions. In every exhibition of paintings depicted unspeakable portrayal of this gory disaster occurred. Bomb used Nakasaki was plutonium which is more powerful than uranium device which was used in Hiroshima. Before bomb was used it was experimented in Manhattan. This Manhattan project was about atomic bomb which was completely illegal, therefore, was done secretly by American government.
July 20th to august 14th more than 60 plutonium bombs were dropped. Why America did two bombs experiments? Was the question posed by author. This was sheer experiment for selling and promotion of bombs by America. It was quite fascinating to hear this from an American guy.
This writing doesn’t only, creatively informs its readers about the American assault on innocent civilians but also cautiously portrays an alarming danger of nuclear and atomic weapons that lies beneath many of the nations. The author alarms the reader to the disastrous risk of nuclear fission with as little as one kilogram of uranium, and campaigns against use of nuclear power.
Statistics Source: http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
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