Title: Hiroshima Boy
Author: Akiko Mikamo (as told to her by Shinji Mikamo)
Publisher: Monoray
Pages: 240
My GoodReads Rating: 
Shinji Mikamo is a 19yo in the Army
when the Japanese government orders his family to demolish their own home and
leave the area in order to prevent the house from catching fire when the
Americans bomb their city, Hiroshima. Times are tough; food is rationed but no
one knows that things are about to get much worse.
On August 6, 1945, Shinji takes leave
from work in order to help his father demolish their home when the city is
bombed by the US. Shinji’s body is badly burnt. Their home is just 1200 metres
from the epicentre. Despite having his skin peeled, his troubles are not over,
as he has to drag himself physically to ensure movement. At this difficult
time, it is his father’s determination that keeps him alive.
Soon after the explosion, they flee
to the river, and experience a huge fire and a tornado and have an encounter
with two cruel Japanese soldiers. Since shinji has a civilian job with the
army, he is consider gunzoku, belonging to the military, and transferred to the
army hospital. His father is not. Father and son never meet again.
Shinji takes us through the painful
course of his treatment, when he is nearly on the verge of death, the strange
illnesses that people suffer as a result of exposure to radiation, how, one by
one, he lost his father, mother, and older brother, and his grief as each new
blow hit. In Japan, an orphan is considered no better than a street rat. The
work he begins to do for the military, how he meets the girl who will become
his wife, the family they build together.
The book is written in the first
person of Shinji by his second daughter, Akiko, who begins her Afterword at the
91% mark. Looking at her father’s experience from her perspective as a
psychologist, author and speaker, she writes, my wish is that people may read
this story, relate to the universal notions of forgiveness and empathy, and
find a means to apply it in their own lives.
WHAT I LIKED:
The author paints a picture of the
chaos and the carnage.
The writing is simple and
matter-of-fact, acknowledging the situation, and steeped in gratitude for what
they have, for the kindness that people show them along the way.
The writing brings out the sense of
pain and destruction, as experienced by the father and son. The author tells us
of fires breaking out everywhere, and jagged pieces of glass getting stuck in
people’s bodies. People are desperate to get away, and save themselves and
their loved ones. It’s an eyewitness account.
In a situation where nearly
everything is destroyed, there are no doctors, no medical aid of any kind. It
is the kindness of friends and strangers that keeps them going. A friend,
Teruo, takes them to another place where they can get better help. A stranger
gives them miso soup, while the mother of his friend, Teruo, brings them
umeboshi, a pickled plum, with rice, a rare meal in wartime. The soldier who
covers Shinji’s body with his jacket.
The black and white pictures add to the authenticity of the testimony. We see images of Shinji and his parents, the mushroom cloud that was visible after the bombing, Shinji’s neighbourhood in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the explosion, the Toshu-gu shrine where Shinji and his father sought refuge for a while, a pocket watch belonging to Shinji’s father, which stopped at 8.15 am by the heat of the bomb, the house key and medal that were chained to Shinji’s father’s pocket watch, Miyoko, Shinji’s wife, and her family before the Second World War, the Fukuya department building, shot a month after the bombing, Shinji and Mikoyo as a couple, after World War II, besides pictures of Takaji, Shinji’s older brother, and a pic of Shinji, Miyoko and their family.
ALL SAID AND DONE:
This is a story about love and the
family’s faith in Buddha which keeps them going. Shinji’s father says that if
he could exchange his relatively uninjured body with that of his badly wounded
and burned son, he would gladly do it. An instance of love that drives the family.
It is amazing that after such
destruction, Japan rose up to build its infrastructure and its spirit.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
