Hiroshima Diary

Hiroshima Diary

  • by Michihiko Hachiya, MD
  • Narrated by Robertson Dean
  • 8 hrs and 58 mins
  • Unabridged Audiobook
4.69 (35
Ratings.
)

Publisher's Summary

The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. Dr. Hachiya's compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was a surgical consultant to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and who became a friend of Dr. Hachiya. In a new foreword, John Dower reflects on the enduring importance of the diary 50 years after the bombing.

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What the Critics Say

"An extraordinary literary event." (The New York Times)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful

Skip the 30min intro.

First 30min segment is filled with spoilers and foreword writer tries to explain things to you like you are five that what you must think of each situation that foreword writer picks from the actual book. Book part it self is excellent listen.
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- f_rele

Hiroshima Diary

I specifically read this in preparation for my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. And yes, it obviously enriched my experience. For anyone planning to visit Hiroshima I would make this an essential pre-visit read.

The tone of the writing is fascinating. Extremely unemotional; a little detached even. Which, in itself, is a really curious window into the mind of the author. It’s hard to say this one man represents the fortitude of the entire population of the time… but through Dr. Hachiya’s lens the Japanese people definitely do seem stoic. Interestingly, most of the anger for their plight seems to be reserved for the Japanese armed forces with very little animosity toward the United States.

For those with any kind of scientific or medical bent… a good percentage of the diary describes the clinical symptoms of those “survivors” suffering from radiation poisoning, which is both mesmerizing and horrific. I say “survivors” but in reality, many of those who survived the blast but were exposed to radiation, eventually died.

"There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man."
-- Alan Paton
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- Matthew

Book Details

  • Release Date: 11-26-2014
  • Publisher: Tantor Audio
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