Presentation Title

Dark Night of the Soul: Catholic Articulations of Atomic Trauma in Seirai Yuichi's "Ground Zero, Nagasaki"

Presenter's Name(s)

Stratton Elizabeth Coleman, University of Vermont, Arts and SciencesFollow

Abstract

This paper discusses how the Catholic faith of the hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) and their families shapes their understanding of the bombing of Nagasaki in Seirai Yuichi’s short fiction work Ground Zero, Nagasaki. Specifically, Seirai Yuichi’s text counters the “connected divide” described by Yuko Shibata in Producing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in that it centers the atomic experience on the individuals and away from the canonical atomic bomb collection of testimonies by John Hershey in Hiroshima and corroborated by Nagai Takashi’s popular work The Bells of Nagasaki. By re-centering the atomic narrative back on the individual articulations of faith as affected by age, gender, and first- versus second-generation trauma, Seirai offers a harrowing look into the lives of those who live with the memory of the atomic bombing.

Primary Faculty Mentor Name

Kyle Keoni Ikeda

Status

Undergraduate

Student College

College of Arts and Sciences

Program/Major

Asian Studies

Primary Research Category

Arts & Humanities