About the Book...A Dimly Burning Wick—Memoir from the Ruins of Hiroshima

About A Dimly Burning Wick

Created from the diary of Sadako Okuda, kept during her agonizing search for her niece and nephew after the bombing of Hiroshima, A Dimly Burning Wick: Memoir from the Ruins of Hiroshima tells the stories of the children she encountered.

Okuda’s memoir is one of kindness amid horror. As Martin J. Sherwin, the Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of J. Robert Oppenheimer, commented: “This memoir is a moving and powerful reminder that there are innocent people on the receiving end of nuclear weapons.” While struggling with her anger at the horrific events to which she bears witness, Okuda ultimately realizes that the answer lies in working for peace.

Included in this work is additional commentary and analysis written by Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Sok-Hon Ham, Catherine Thomasson, past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Martin Donohoe (Public Health and Social Justice), and preeminent scholars, such as Historian Ronald Takaki of the University of California at Berkeley (winner of the American Book Award) and Sociologist Paul Joseph, Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Tufts University. The additional material addresses such profound issues as why the atomic bomb was dropped and how we remember Hiroshima.

This book offers a rare and powerful approach to history. Written from the bottom-up, it intimately draws the reader into the events following the bombing, but also gives readers the overarching historical context and continuing relevance. The reader is left with Okuda’s touching and haunting testimony of the importance of children and how to better protect them.

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A Dimly Burning Wick — Memoir from the Ruins of Hiroshima

Sadako Okuda, with Pamela Vergun

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Website Creator: Pam Vergun

Illustrations by Mia Nolting; Web Contributor: Jim Wilson