![](//images.45worlds.com/t/bk/john-hersey-hiroshima-3-bk-t.jpg)
Comment by ppint.:
this work of journalism is not fiction, and this mis-categorisation should^W has been deleted.
hersey interviewed many people who had - at least for a while - survived the immediate ''nuclear bombing'', or ''nuking'' of hiroshima - which, together with the similar destruction of nagasaki - was initially celebrated, and not only the cause of celebrations, but even made the topic of jokes in america and elsewhere (and probably in the uk and the british empire, too; though i do not know this). he also did follow-up interviews with many people.
following the experiences of six real people from just before the atomic bomb was detonated above hiroshima, this was thought to be so important a piece of journalism when it was received by the editor, that instead of its being broken into several episodes and published in consecutive issues, the whole article - all 31,000 words of it - was published in a single issue of
the new yorker, on 31/8/1946.
it sold out at newsstands within a few hours.
it was published in hardcover by alfred a. knopf later on in 1946; the book of the month club sent its edition free of charge to all of its members, and it was read aloud on the american broadcasting company's network in four half-hour installments; it was also read out on the bbc on the home service, iiuc.
it is probably the single most important factor in the awakening of non-japanese people to the 'til then unimaginable magnitude of the horrors of the use of nuclear weapons, and the moral questions their existence raises.