Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir

Name: Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir
Brand: Modern Library
SKU: 9798217197972
Price: 38.40 USD
Availability: InStock

$38.40

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Biographical Note:
Kiyoshi Tanimoto (1909-1986) was a Japanese Methodist minister who was educated in part in the United States, studying at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly after returning to Japan, in 1943, he moved to Hiroshima to become pastor of the Nagarekawa Methodist Church, and was later profiled in John Hersey's Hiroshima. Tanimoto became a well-known speaker and proponent of peace in both Japan and the United States, and dedicated the rest of his life to helping Hiroshima victims, telling their stories, and advocating for an end to nuclear warfare.

Review Quotes:
"Kiyoshi Tanimoto's eyewitness account of the Hiroshima atomic bombing is both a stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony of human suffering. It echoes John Hersey's groundbreaking 1946 New Yorker essay--but Tanimoto's Japanese voice is equally powerful, and a poignant reminder that in the nuclear age, humanity always lives on the brink of extinction." --Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus, the biography that inspired Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer

"The Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto, known as the 'rescuing angel' in nuclear-bombed Hiroshima, left a powerful eyewitness account and a stark warning about the savagery of the nuclear age for generations to come. It feels more urgent today than at any time since the end of the Cold War." --Serhii Plokhy, author of The Nuclear Age and Chernobyl

"Written in 1947 but discovered more than seven decades later in 2022, Hiroshima, 8:15 recounts the intimate details of Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto's round-the-clock efforts and courageous split-second choices to save and care for countless survivors. Tanimoto offers his Christian perspectives on Hiroshima's victimization from the atomic bombing and his views on the roles of both Japan and the United States in the Pacific War. Hiroshima, 8:15 is a rare and important addition to history." --Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War

"We have apparently spent eighty years forgetting what atomic warfare actually looks like. Just now, we are staring into the abyss created by a steady erosion of the processes of shared control and accountability. Nuclear non-proliferation is more at risk than it has been since the 1970s. This intensely moving book, a record of Christian faith and practical compassion, is also an unsparing chronicle of the reality of mass destruction. Pray God it will restore some sense of urgency to our commitment to a nuclear-free world." --Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

"A long-forgotten firsthand account of one of history's greatest tragedies . . . An essential addition to the literature of nuclear warfare." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Harrowing. . . . Tanimoto's powerful recollections emphasize the on-the-ground disbelief that such devastation could occur so instantaneously, with no forewarning, as well as the persistent guilt felt by survivors. . . . A grim reminder of the bomb's awful toll." --Publishers Weekly

Reading Line:
With a foreword by his daughter, Koko Tanimoto Kondo; Introduction by David Corn

Publisher Marketing:
A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors--bringing unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.

"A stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony." --Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of American Prometheus

At approximately 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945, Kiyoshi Tanimoto was on the outskirts of Hiroshima when a flash in the sky signaled the birth of a horrifying new world. In an instant, tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents had been vaporized or crushed to death.

As Tanimoto, a thirty-six-year-old Methodist minister, raced back to the city center in search of his wife and infant daughter, he encountered unimaginable devastation: structures leveled; fires everywhere; uncountable injured suffering from burns, broken bones, and the effects of radiation. In the days, weeks, and months that followed this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he invested body and soul in helping his living congregants obtain food, shelter, and medical care, as well as identifying and burying with as much dignity as possible those who had perished. He dedicated himself to rebuilding not only his church, but his city and his nation.

Tanimoto went on to gain renown as one of the survivors featured in John Hersey's New Yorker piece and book, Hiroshima, which changed the American public's understanding of the event. But Tanimoto also wrote his own story. Hiroshima, 8:15 is Tanimoto's never-before-published firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, written in the immediate aftermath, in his own words.

This singular memoir is both an invaluable addition to the historical record and an urgent eyewitness testimony of one of the most calamitous events to befall humanity. At a time when the threat of nuclear war still looms, Tanimoto's message of peace, and his vision of a better path forward for humankind, is of vital importance.

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