The story of six human beings who survived the explosion of the atom bomb over
Hiroshima- this is the complete text of the brilliant report to which “The New Yorker’ devoted its entire issue of August 31, 1946.
First BCE 1946 VG Condition
This first edition book form of John Hersey’s classic The New Yorker essay is a relic from the dawn of the atomic age.
After its 1946 publication, the four-chapter piece of groundbreaking journalism occupied newsstands across the country and confounded readers despite its belated overview of the carnage wrought at Hiroshima.
The essay provides a minute-by-minute and step-by-step narrative of the actions of six unsuspecting Hiroshima residents on August 6, 1945. In contrast to the statistics and tolls that had dominated American discussions of the evisceration of Hiroshima, Hersey’s encapsulating but targeted narrative illustrates the human dimension of an act that ended a war but initiated an apocalyptic era.
By the time Hersey wrote Hiroshima, he was already a household name, marquee journalist, and novelist extraordinaire. After graduating from Yale University in 1936, he worked at Time and Life magazine in the role of foreign correspondent. Hersey’s 1944 novel, A Bell for Adano ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize, granting its author instant recognition and literary authority.
Despite its initial publication as an issue-length article in The New Yorker, Hiroshima was quickly released in book form for mass market audiences and reading clubs throughout the country.
