Writings from Under the Mushroom Cloud: Atomic Bomb Literature as a Literature of Atrocity

Atomic bomb literature comprises texts that emerged out of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Almost all these writings deal directly or indirectly with the singular experience of the world’s first nuclear attacks. A-bomb literature has long been pushed to the margins of Japanese literature, often dismissed as testimonial writing or even history, and excluded from writings about violence. Moreover, the appropriation of the Hiroshima experience by peace and anti-nuclear movements has limited our understanding of the atomic bombings and framed it within the anti-nuclear discourse. This has had the effect of limiting the “subversive potential of Hiroshima.” Hiroshima as a historic event in world history has become part of a much larger humanist narrative which collectivises and universalises the atomic bombing. These narratives portray the atomic holocaust as a universal offence against humanity and not as crimes against the people of one country. The popular and dominant narratives of Hiroshima have failed to acknowledge the atomic bombing as an atrocity. This paper will argue that atomic bomb literature must be read, and interpreted, as a literature of atrocity. My argument is based on Lawrence Langer’s proposition that a literature of atrocity deals with the disintegration of the human image in the face of inappropriate death. A literature of atrocity strips death of its romantic dress and reveals man’s fragile existence and the vulnerability of the flesh. In short, it deals with “inappropriate death.”