September 10, 2021
A picture book featuring a family of a former crewmember of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon #5), a Japanese tuna fishing boat exposed to radioactive fallout in the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, was added to the collection of the Library of Congress, the de facto national library of the United States, Akahata reported on September 10.
The picture book titled “Barano Inori: Shinohai wo Koete (A prayer of roses: Overcoming ashes of death)” tells the tragedy of the former fishing boat crewman’s family in Japanese and English. It was created in 2018 by Kasuya Takako, a retired teacher living in Shizuoka Prefecture where the Daigo Fukuryu Maru’s homeport city of Yaizu is located, in collaboration with her friends in a local peace group with the aim of increasing public awareness of the Bikini tragedy caused by a U.S. hydrogen bomb test.
Kasuya in an Akahata interview noted that the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force in January and that the number of countries that ratified the treaty reached 55. She said, “The entry into force of the TPNW has influenced young Americans’ view on nuclear weapons. They began supporting the call for abolishing nuclear weapons. I want many people to know not only about the tragedies of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also about those caused by the U.S. hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.”
The picture book titled “Barano Inori: Shinohai wo Koete (A prayer of roses: Overcoming ashes of death)” tells the tragedy of the former fishing boat crewman’s family in Japanese and English. It was created in 2018 by Kasuya Takako, a retired teacher living in Shizuoka Prefecture where the Daigo Fukuryu Maru’s homeport city of Yaizu is located, in collaboration with her friends in a local peace group with the aim of increasing public awareness of the Bikini tragedy caused by a U.S. hydrogen bomb test.
Kasuya in an Akahata interview noted that the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force in January and that the number of countries that ratified the treaty reached 55. She said, “The entry into force of the TPNW has influenced young Americans’ view on nuclear weapons. They began supporting the call for abolishing nuclear weapons. I want many people to know not only about the tragedies of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also about those caused by the U.S. hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.”
