John Hersey's Hiroshima
In 2 seconds the city
(160 thousand persons)
has collapsed to dust & ashes
… RUBBLE ...
Hersey walks round & around
asking, searching.
Men women & children lie silent
- burnt, with skin hanging
( cut worms writhing? )
recalling
a forgotten god -
HOPING.
All these now dead were once people
somebody’s family friends children
brokenly wandering thru a brief book
. . . HERSEY’S BOOK.
Note
Hersey succeeds marvellously in dragging his readers into the middle of the devastation.
We can hear the cries he hears & see the struggle his witnesses describe. We feel - looking through his eyes at the immense number of the dead & dying - the sense of helplessness, anxiety & ignorance of the living.