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$14.95
266 pages
ISBN-10: 0867195967
ISBN-13: 9780867195965
Publisher: Last Gasp
Cartoonist Keiji Nakazawa was seven years old and living in Hiroshima in the early days of August 1945 when the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb dropped by the U.S.A. Starting a few months before that event, the ten-volume saga shows life in Japan after years of war and privations, as seen through the eyes of seven-year-old Gen Nakaoka.
Available in English for the first time and widely anticipated, Volume Five of the Barefoot Gen story follows Gen's struggles in postwar Japan. The people of Hiroshima face a massive food shortage and horrendous health problems. Gen is in school, but he is forced to choose between making money to support his family or staying in school to be a part of society. The choice is further complicated when his mother becomes sick, and his old friends reappear as part of a street gang. There is no help for his mother, save for the costly medicine procured on the black market. Gen becomes entangled with black market gangs and faces an internal struggle of honor, ethics, and duty to resolve his problems.
"Nakazawa's graphic presentation of what it was like to survive the atomic bombing of Hiroshima should be required reading for all citizens, beginning with the President. Perhaps then we might gain the maturity to stop such madness." -Hunter and Amory Lovins, Friends of the Earth
