Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility after Hiroshima

A Note on the Text

A NOTE ON THE TEXT In Japanese, the term hibakusha can be rendered in two different ways in writing. When the element baku is written with the Chinese character for ‘‘bomb,’’ it refers to survivors of the atomic bombings of 1945. When baku is written with the Chinese character for ‘‘exposure,’’ the meaning of hibakusha is widened to include not only victims of the bombings but also all those harmed by exposure to radiation from nuclear material (for example, workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants after the accident triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011). In this book, unless I specify otherwise, I use ‘‘hibakusha’’ to refer to those who suffered from the atomic bombing and/or its radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though in Japanese no distinction is made between singular and plural nouns (number is indicated by context), for ease of reading I have adopted English conventions in the use of ‘‘hibakusha.’’ When it refers to an individual survivor, it appears as ‘‘hibakusha’’; the plural is rendered ‘‘hibakushas.’’ My use of the definite article in conjunction with ‘‘hibakusha’’ when used as a mass noun is to adhere to English conventions and should not be taken to indicate that ‘‘the’’ hibakusha comprise a univocal group or monolithic category. With the exception of names widely known among English readers (for example, Kenzaburō Oe and Akira Kurosawa), in rendering East Asian names in the body of the text I follow the conventional ordering of the region, with surnames followed by given names. For example, Nagai Takashi’s name appears in the Japanese order; the surname Nagai precedes the given name, Takashi. In the acknowledgments section alone, surnames follow given names. When possible, I have used available English translations of Japanese texts; unless otherwise indicated, all other translations from the Japanese are mine. BEYOND THE MUSHROOM CLOUD ...