• Book Cover: Hiroshima Bomb Money. A novel based on true stories, by Terry Watada. Japanese maple leaves cascade on delicate branches down in front of a mountain scene in the style of a Japanese print. Four of the leaves are red in colour. The rest of the image is greyscale in pallete.

Hiroshima Bomb Money

by Terry Watada

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978-177439-100-6 | 2024 October | 352 Pages

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Through the lives of three siblings living in Hiroshima, Japan, Terry Watada explores the sweep of history during the years 1930 to 1945. The youngest, Chisato Akamatsu, travels to Canada looking for a new life but is confronted by the brutalities of immigration, a troubled marriage and the humiliation of the Japanese internment by the Canadian government. Hideki, the only brother, joins the military to fight for the Emperor and find “glory” in China, but finds only the fallacy of patriotism, the brutality of war, and the futility of existence. Chiemi, the oldest, was in the city when to the atom bomb hit. The three encapsulate the hopes, fears, dreams, the inhumanity of the period and resiliency of humans caught in historic events. In his fourth novel, Canadian poet, dramatist, and novelist Terry Watada delves into the Pacific War, looking at WWII from a Japanese perspective, unique in Canadian literature.

    “A born storyteller, Terry Watada has devoted his creative career to chronicling the Japanese Canadian experience in all its facets. In Hiroshima Bomb Money, he turns his eye toward Japan during the years leading up to the Second World War to introduce three siblings—one who comes to Canada and two who remain in Japan—whose fates are indelibly shaped in different ways by the merciless trajectory of war. Rich in historical detail, this is a sweeping family tale of endurance and connection and of the importance of never forgetting.”
    — Lynne Kutsukake, author of The Art of Vanishing 

    “This masterful novel combines the clear-eyed directness of the best journalism with a poetic sensitivity for the intimate moments of joy and grief in the lives of its characters. Weaving together the stories of three Hiroshima siblings separated by war and migration, Watada offers a seldom-told perspective on Japanese and Canadian life during the Second World War and the resilience of those caught in its wake. I was deeply moved.” 
    — Thomas Wharton, award-winning author of The Book of Rain