With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

The Man Who Continues to Speak about Experiencing the H-Bomb -- Exposed Clearly: the Deception that is Deterrence


Notes

1 Ōe’s own father died in 1944, when Ōe was nine years old.

2 This passage occurs near the end of Kimyō na shigoto (Strange job), Ōe’s first published story. The job, in which the narrator works with two other students, one male and one female, involves slaughtering dogs; in the end, the job is a con, and they are all laid off after killing only some of the dogs. Ōe Kenzaburō zensakuhin 1:17 (Shinchōsha, 1966). This translation is by Ruth Adler (Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 12.3:73 [July-September 1980]. 

3 Hatoyama cited “deterrence” to justify abandoning his previous insistence that no new U.S. base be built in Okinawa in favor of supporting construction at Henoko.