‘はだしのゲン’ / ’Barefoot Gen’ - Mori Masaki, 1983

A powerful statement against war, Barefoot Gen is a story about the effect of the atomic bomb on a boy’s life and the lives of the Japanese people. Based on the acclaimed manga by Nakazawa Keiji, the author of Barefoot Gen, who was 6 years old at the time of the Hiroshima bombing, and is one of the survivors of the destruction. The bomb was responsible for the death of his father, his sister, and his brother. At the age of 6 he and his mother dug their remains out of the ruins of their home. In 1963 Nakazawa moved to Tokyo to become a manga artist, but returned to Hiroshima in 1966 to attend his mothers funeral. It was then that he learned of the true impact of the radiation from the bomb.