‘A book that everyone should read’ — The Times

A harrowing, heart-rending first-hand account of the bombing of Nagasaki — and the acts of human kindness left in its wake.

On 9 August 1945, the Japanese city of Nagasaki was struck by an atomic bomb. Forty thousand people were killed instantly. Doctor Takashi Nagai was not one of them.

Dragging himself, broken and bloodied, from the ruins of what had been the city’s university hospital, Nagai gathered together a small, tattered group of survivors — doctors, nurses and students, each carrying their own grief and fear. Together, they worked relentlessly at the impossible task of tending to the wounded and comforting the dying amid unimaginable devastation.

As they struggled to heal their shattered city, a mysterious and terrifying sickness began to spread among them, silently claiming lives. Writing from his sickbed, Nagai recorded what he witnessed in the days and weeks following the bombing.

This powerful eyewitness account of one of the most catastrophic events in human history stands as both a chilling historical document and a profound testament to humanity’s capacity for compassion, courage and solidarity in the face of destruction.

With an introduction by Richard Lloyd Parry.