Hiroshima (John Hersey)

Hiroshima John Herseys Hiroshima gives us the experience of six people who survived the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb. These six were among the survivors. John Hersey tells you (the reader) their stories, and has returned to find them forty years later to tell you their fates. These six people vary in gender, age and profession. Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of …

…he simply relates the information in a no-nonsense fashion. Written in a dry, calm manner that might strike some readers as emotionless but permits the survivors' stories to speak for themselves, the style is deliberate. Hersey avoided making himself a part of the account so the readers' experience is as direct as possible until the final chapter when he adds a bit of style with the addition of atomic events taking place in the world.