$14.95
270 pages
ISBN-10: 0867196017
ISBN-13: 9780867196016
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, his ten-volume saga shows life in Japan after years of war and privations, as seen through the eyes of seven- year- old Gen Nakaoka.
In the tenth and final volume: The year is 1953. Now an apprentice sign painter, Gen has become a skilled artist, while his friends run a thriving dressmaking business. Gen falls in love for the first time, but fails to notice that a good friend has been caught in the clutches of drug addiction. Heartbreak and loss await Gen as the atomic bomb continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people in Hiroshima years after the fact. Yet these tragedies also inspire Gen to move to Tokyo to pursue his career as an artist.
"Some of the best comics ever done... Nakazawa, I'm sure, will be considered one of the great comic artists of this century." -Robert Crumb
"Gen effectively bears witness to one of the central horrors of our time. This vivid and harrowing story will burn a radioactive crater in your memory that will never let you forget it." -Art Spiegelman
"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
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