Atomic bomb literature

Atomic bomb literature (原爆文学, Genbaku bungaku) is a literary genre in Japanese literature used to describe writing about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This can include diaries, testimonial or documentary accounts, poetry, drama or fictional works based around the bombings.

There are several generations of atomic bomb writers. The first, made up of actual survivors of the bombings, who wrote of their own experiences, includes Yōko Ōta, Tamiki Hara, Shinoe Shoda, and Sadako Kurihara. The second, who wrote about the bomb in order to invoke the wider social and political issues it raises, includes Yoshie Hotta, Momo Iida, Kenzaburō Ōe, Masuji Ibuse, Ineko Sata. The third, whose writing looks to the future in a post-nuclear world, includes Kōbō Abe, Makoto Oda, and Mitsuharu Inoue.

Perhaps the best known work of atomic bomb literature is Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse.

Works by non-Japanese authors that could also be deemed as atomic bomb literature include John Hersey's Hiroshima.

See also

• The Holocaust in art and literature

Further reading

• Atomic Bomb Literature: A Bibliography
• Goodman, David. After Apocalypse: Four Japanese Plays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
• Haver, William. The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS. Stanford University Press, 1997.
• Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New ed. London: Michael Joseph, 2009.
• Ōe, Kenzaburō. The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath. 1st ed. New York: Grove Press, 1985.
• Annotated bibliography for atomic bomb literature from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues