The Works of Keiji Nakazawa

Cartoonist Keiji Nakazawa was six years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on his hometown of Hiroshima.

Shielded by a stone wall, he miraculously survived the blast, only to be plunged into a hellish landscape. 

Compelled to tell his story in the memory of his family, Nakazawa turned to comics, penning his epic graphic novel series, Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. 

"Highly recommended for older readers and for all libraries."
— The Library Journal (on Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen)

"Invaluable for the lessons it offers in history, humanity and compassion."
— Publishers Weekly (on Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen)

Barefoot Gen is the powerful, tragic, auto-biographical story of the bombing of Hiroshima, as seen through the eyes of the author as a young boy growing up in wartime Japan.

I Can't Forget The Bomb is an illustrated memoir recounting Nakazawa's wartime childhood, his experience surviving the atomic bomb, and how the effects reverberated throughout his life.

I Saw It is a survivor's true story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The atomic bomb exploded 600 meters above my hometown of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. I was a little over one kilometer away from the epicenter, standing at the back gate of Kanazaki Primary School, when I was hit by a terrible blast of wind and searing heat.

     I was six years old. I owe my life to the school’s concrete wall. If I hadn’t been standing in its shadow, I would have been burned to death instantly by the 5,000-degree heat flash.

     Instead, I found myself in a living hell, the details of which remain etched in my brain as if it happened yesterday.