Beautiful new softcover edition available now from Last Gasp!
Barefoot Gen Volume Five 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.
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
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
Nakazawa was born in Hiroshima, and was six years old when the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. All of his family members who had not been evacuated died in the bombing, except for his mother, and an infant sister who died several weeks after the bombing. Compelled to tell his story in the memory of his family, Keiji Nakazawa is best known for his epic tragic history Barefoot Gen.
