The Blinding Light: Hiroshima By John Hersey

The Blinding Light

Hiroshima is a book that was written and published in 1946 by John Hersey. I picked this book due to the name since it was something I recognized. Without knowing where the story started and where it was going I found myself submerged as if I was one of the survivors. This book follows the incredible story of six survivors, prior to the bomb, and a year after the bomb was dropped, making you live the intangible ordeal through letters that were written by Hersey to show the story from the other end.

The story starts in 1945 and the US and Japan are under war. August 6th of 1945 a somewhat normal morning, turns into an apocalyptic daybreak in Hiroshima, Japan. The six characters are described it as any other day. Warnings

How the bombing affected them. Mrs. Nakamura’s life after the bomb was just struggle and sickness. Mrs. Sasaki just as Nakamura has this “I am moving on” mentality. Dr. Sasaki tells a different story, he seems to not be able to move on, since he cannot forget the people that he could not help. Sickness was also his enemy. Dr. Fujii ended up having family issues, and just as before the bombing he continued his luxuries and materialistic life. Father Kleinsorge, continued helping people, but, was limited due to his health. Mr. Tamimoto, was more involved in helping people, politics, and the after studies of the effects of the bombing. He did a lot of fund-raising for the Hibakusha (Radiation affected people). Hersey ends the book with Mr. Tamimoto’s story putting the thought on the readers that the rest of the human population sees the apocalyptic night as news, asking a question whether something like this will happen again? And how nothing was learned from the suffering, the suffering of the people that died, the suffering of the people that survived this ordeal. Because, the Blinding light continued to reek havoc on the survivors, way after that eventful