Hiroshima in the Morning (31 page)

 

I have shelves full of books on Hiroshima, the internment camps, and the Japanese Americans. Here, I want to acknowledge two indispensible works that are referenced in this text:
Where We The Enemy?: American Survivors of Hiroshima
by Rinjiro Sodei who I had the privilege of meeting at Hosei University in Tokyo (Westview Press, 1998), and
And Justice For All: An Oral History of the American Detention Camps
, by John Tateishi (Random
House, 1984). I first encountered the quote I have taken my title from in Carolyn Forche’s poem “Testimony of Light” (
The Angel of History
, Harper Perennial, 1994). The poem borrows it from Peter Schwenger’s book,
Letter Bomb: Nuclear Holocaust and the Exploding Word
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).

 

A book is more than its research, and a memoir is more than the life lived. It is born in the aftermath. To my family; to my family of friends; to my family of writer friends, and teacher friends, and student friends—to everyone who read this book in any of its many incarnations or helped bring it into the world, everyone who believed in me and lived with me while I wrestled it from life to art: thank you for your generosity, and support, and love. Although I can’t name all the people who have touched it with their grace and talent during the past decade, I would like to acknowledge Kenny Fries, Beth Kephart, Eloise Flood, Bino Realuyo, Tina Nguyen, John Searcy, Prageeta Sharma, Kate Moses, Ming Yuen-Schat, Majo Tinoco, Manisha Sharma, Jonathan Hadley, Pat Klesinger, Rebecca Brown, Elena Georgiou, and Douglas A. Martin. Abiding thanks to Ellen Levine at Trident and Amy Scholder at the Feminist Press, who loved it instantly, and all the others who helped bring it into the world. And finally, my lifelong gratitude to my parents, my children, and their father who not only had to live through this, but had to live through it with a writer.

Published in 2010 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
feministpress.org

Copyright © 2010 by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

 

All rights reserved

 

This publication was made possible, in part, with support from Diane Bernard.

 

No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

 

 

 

Rizzuto, Rahna R.

Hiroshima in the morning : a memory / by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-1-558-61668-3

1. Hiroshima-shi (Japan)—Description and travel. 2. Rizzuto, Rahna R.—Travel—Japan—Hiroshima-shi. 3. Hiroshima-shi (Japan)—History—Bombardment, 1945. 4. Hiroshima-shi (Japan)—History—Bombardment, 1945—Personal narratives, Japanese. 5. Atomic bomb victims—Japan—Hiroshima-shi—Biography. 6. Pacifists—Japan—Hiroshima-shi—Biography. 7. Hiroshima-shi (Japan)—Biography. 8. Rizzuto, Rahna R. 9. Rizzuto, Rahna R.—Family. 10. Japanese American authors—Biography. I. Title.

DS897.H5R59 2010

940.54’2521954—dc22

2010019658