1946 printing; John Hersey; book is very good condition; boards quite good with very minor ageing and scuffs; no dust jacket; Alfred A. Knopf publisher, New York.
 
Description -
Hiroshima is a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey. It tells the stories of six survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, covering a period of time immediately prior to and one year after the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. It was originally published in The New Yorker.
 
Although the story was originally scheduled to be published over four issues, the entire edition of August 31, 1946, was dedicated to the article.  The article and subsequent book are regarded as one of the earliest examples of the New Journalism, in which the story-telling techniques of fiction are adapted to non-fiction reporting.
 
Less than two months after the publication of Hiroshima in The New Yorker, the article was printed as a book by Alfred A. Knopf and has sold over three million copies to date.
 
Hiroshima has been continuously in print since its publication, according to later New Yorker essayist Roger Angell, because "its story became a part of our ceaseless thinking about world wars and nuclear holocaust".
 
Author -
Before writing Hiroshima, Hersey had been a war correspondent in the field, writing for Life magazine and The New Yorker. He followed troops during the invasions of Italy and Sicily during World War II. In 1944, Hersey began working in the Pacific Theater and followed Lt. John F. Kennedy through the Solomon Islands. One of the first Western journalists to view the ruins of Hiroshima after the bombing, Hersey was commissioned by William Shawn of The New Yorker to write articles about the impact of a nuclear explosion by using witness accounts, a subject virtually untouched by journalists. Hersey interviewed many witnesses; he focused his article on six in particular.