The Literature Trapped Under the Mushroom Cloud: The Brave Hibakusha Authors the Appropriation of their Narratives by Non-Hibakusha

Abstract

Japan became the only nation in the world to have experienced the trauma that is atomic bombing when the United States dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Besides the catastrophic physical damage done by these bombs, that reduced the two cities to ruins, the bombs claimed thousands of lives and affected the lives of even more. There are over 175,000 names of the dead commemorated at the peace park in Hiroshima and over 70,000 people died due to the bombing at Nagasaki. Beyond these immediate deaths, survivors were subject to radiation sickness and Hiroshima's newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun cites that by 1950 there had been over 280,000 deaths related to the bombing, with the same count in Nagasaki reaching around 140,000. The atomic bombs subjected those present in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to terrible horrors and pain that the rest of us can only imagine. These people are now referred to as hibakusha (被爆者), which translates literally to a person who was under attack by a bomb but conveys the connotation of those who were attacked by nuclear weapons such as atomic bombs, the only of which were used on Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as well as Bikini Atoll). The hibakusha's narratives shed light on to what their experiences as the only survivors of atomic bombs were like. Following the atomic bombings, several hibakusha wanted to document their experiences and stories as literary works. However, due to criticism from the literary mainstream, censorship during U.S. occupation, and disagreement amongst hibakusha on how to respond to the bombings, they struggled to get their works published, recognized, and widely read. Although a number of non-hibakusha came to promote hibakusha stories through their own literary works, in doing so they appropriated hibakusha's narratives, diminished the event of the bombing, and made it harder for hibakusha authors to have their works accepted. This paper first highlights some of the hibakusha authors that wanted to document and reflect first-hand what it meant to experience the atomic bombings in literary works. Ōta Yōko, Hara Tamiki, and Hayashi Kyōko sought to use literature as a platform to commemorate what hibakusha experienced in the bombings and allow their stories to reach wider audiences. However, these authors' efforts were never as successful as they hoped them to be. The paper then examines the obstacles hibakusha faced in having their stories heard. First, there was the personal hardship of sharing one's trauma amidst the growth of a city trying to be reborn. Secondly, during the occupation period, the United States enforced strict censorship that prevented works from being published and fostered an environment in which publishing houses were hesitant to take the risk of publishing works about the atomic bombings. Thirdly, literary circles were opposed to celebrating works about the atomic bombs, scrutinizing atomic-bomb literature as unworthy of being considered literature at all. Yet, there were some works about the bombings by non-hibakusha that were wildly successful. The final portion of this paper examines why works about the bombings by non-hibakusha were accepted, continue to be some of the most widely read on the topic, and how these works misrepresent a narrative that is not their author's own.