Description
“Every year when the days begin to stretch and the penetrating heat of summer rises to a scorching point, I am brought back to one sunny day in a faraway land. I was a young child waiting for my mother to come home. On that day, however, the sun and the earth melted together. My mother would not come home. . . .”
Hideko was ten years old when the atomic bomb devastated her home in Hiroshima. In this eloquent and moving narrative, she recalls her life before the bomb, the explosion itself, and the influence of that trauma upon her subsequent life in Japan and the United States. Her years in America have given her unusual insights into the relationship between Japanese and American cultures and the impact of Hiroshima on our lives.
This new edition includes two expanded chapters and revisions throughout. A new epilogue brings the story up to date, covering Hideko’s work as an anti-nuclear activist, including her visit to the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. This poignant story of courage and resilience remains deeply relevant today, offering a profoundly personal testimony against the ongoing threat of nuclear warfare.
About the Author
Hideko Tamura Snider has been appearing before professional organizations, university classes, and community groups across the United States and in her native Japan since 1979. By telling her story and encouraging people of all cultures and nations to examine the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, she has devoted her life to the cause of peace and nuclear nonproliferation. She is based in Medford, Oregon.
Praise For…
“There have been scores of such remembrances recorded, but few that so touch and sear the soul as much as this childhood memory of one sunny day.”—Studs Terkel