Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir

A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors-a lost classic that brings unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event. “A stunning historical discovery and a heartrending testimony.” -Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of American PrometheusThe whole city was covered with dark clouds, and conflagrations were breaking out in various directions.Could all of this have happened at once? It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries, began to fall - rain caused by the atomic bomb.I wondered what had happened to my home and church. With a pale face, I ran down the Koi highway…When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945, Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto was just beginning his day with the usual bowl of soybean and rice bran porridge.Unbeknownst to him at that moment, the aftermath that will unfold before him over days and weeks is full of horror, but through