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(★)(小田実, Translated by D.H. Whittaker)(Titulo original : Hiroshima [idem]／ In his debut in English, novelist and internationally known activist Makoto Oda offers us one of the most profound and timely works of imaginative fiction to emerge from postwar Japan. Within its impressionistic framework exists a universe of people of different racial and ethnic background -American Indians, whites, blacks Japanese, Koreans- all affected by the desecration of social order and the environment symbolized by the first atomic bomb.／ The novel takes place against a constantly changing canvas of time and place. It begins in and around a small Southwestern town in the 1940s, when an Indian tribe is thrown off sacred tribal land because of a secret government project. Later the scene shifts to the war zone in the Pacific and to the city of Hiroshima, and then many years later to a surrealistic cancer ward and a stunning, apocalyptic finale.／ The book is an eloquent passion play, powerful as only a deeply felt work of art can be, about a torment that transcends people, place, and time, threatening the devastation of family, culture, even the world itself, with only the barest hint of redemption.／ At the same time, it is a battle cry for all those committed to resist that destruction.／ ◆Makoto Oda was born in 1932, in Osaka. He graduated from the University of Tokyo, where he majored in classical Greek philosophy and literature, then attended Harvard University on a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1961 he published a book describing his travels around the world on a shoe-string budget, which became the bestseller of the year among Japan´s postwar generation. Widely known as the leader of ´Beheiren [League of Citizens´ Movements for Peace in Vietnam]´ and of other major citizens´ movements on anti-war and anti-nuclear issues, his numerous essays and full-length novels reflect his activities both in Japan and abroad.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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