Book excerpt: This is a collection of letters that document the catastrophe visited uponne family during the destruction of Hiroshima. The author - a youngrofessor of history at Hiroshima University - spent several days after theropping of the atomic bomb searching for his wife and son. His joy on beinge-united with them was short-lived as radiation sickness took his wife tenays later. The author spent the following year writing a series of letterso his wife, outlining the things he saw and experienced over the two weeksefore the bombing and her death.;The book also contains family documents,etters from the children to their parents and a diary in which the eldestaughter described the events of the 18th-19th August 1945, when she returnedo Hiroshima on the final day of her mother's life.