Noritaka Fukami, 'Kiyo No Arashi / Storm Over Nagasaki'

IssueSeptember - November 2004
Review by Martyn Lowe

This is a book which makes a very useful contribution to the literature which already exists about the use of atomic weapons against Japan.

Noritaka Fukami was in Nagasaki at the time that the bomb was dropped. After the bomb fell he was involved in some of the rescue work within the city. Storm Over Nagasaki is a scroll depicting the bombing, and provides a visual record of what he and others experienced at the time.

Suffering from radiation sickness, he committed suicide in 1952.

The book is divided into two main parts. The first is his personal account of what happened to him at the time, followed by a tribute to him by Yamada Hirotami, who is the general secretary of the Nagasaki Council of A-Bomb Sufferers and author of several other texts on this human-made disaster.

This first section of the book is published in both English and Japanese.

The second section is a reproduction of the Kiyo No Arashi/Storm Over Nagasaki Picture Scroll, the text of which is only reproduced in Japanese.

A picture of the scroll can be found at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum website at: http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagas aki.jp/na-bomb/museum/m2-11be.html

The book also contains a number of photos of the various peace monuments which exist in the city today.

As with all such books it is very difficult to do it justice in such a short review.

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