Book Break: The Embers Series- "Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses" and "Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses"
By M.G. Sheftall
Monday, August 4, 2025
A Dinner Event, from 5:45 pm to 8:30 pm
(The talk will be in English)

https://www.fccj.or.jp/event/book-break-mg-sheftall-author-embers-series-hiroshima-last-witnesses-and-nagasaki-last

Please sign up by email (front@fccj.or.jp) and pay by Thursday, July 31, 2025.
No cancellations after Friday, August 1.

[Admission]
3,000 yen for members, 4,000 yen for non-members.
550 yen (Online attendance via zoom)

[Schedule]
Doors open at 5:45 pm with a casual "meet the author: cocktail time"
Dinner will be served from 6:30 pm.
The talk begins at 7:15 pm.

[Menu] Please choose from 2 options below.

Option 1: Cobb Salad, White Fish Baked with Herbs and Breadcrumbs in Tomato Sauce, Bread, Today's Dessert, Coffee or Tea, and One beverage of choice (orange juice, oolong tea, red or white wine, beer)

Option 2 (Vegetarian): Green Salad, Vegetable Tomato Pasta, Bread, Fruit, Coffee or Tea, and One beverage of choice (orange juice, oolong tea, red or white wine, beer)

Please inform the club of food restrictions when reserving.(front@fccj.or.jp)

[Venue]
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan
5F Marunouchi Nijubashi Building
3-2-3 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005
(https://www.fccj.or.jp/article/access-contact)

"Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses" and it Embers series companion volume -- "Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses" - are the result of nine years of personal interviews with Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, onsite fieldwork, and both Japanese and American archival research by M.G. Sheftall, a cultural historian at Shizuoka University, a campus of the Japanese national university system.

In these books, M. G. Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha--the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors--in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay, and Little Boy. These survivors and witnesses, who are now on average ninety years old, are quite literally the last people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bombings, tell us what they experienced on the day those cities were obliterated, and give us some appreciation of what it has entailed to live with those memories and scars since.

With the post-World War II global order now in disarray, toxic nationalism once again on the march, and liberal democracy in seemingly full retreat around the world, the "Embers" volumes should be required reading for the modern age. The personal accounts they contain are cautionary tales about the horror and insanity of nuclear warfare, reminding us--it is hoped--that the world still lives with this danger at our doorstep. But the stories these "hibakusha" have shared with Sheftall - and through him, with all of us - also stand as testaments to the incredible resilience of the human spirit in the face of unfathomable horror, suffering, and destruction.

M.G. Sheftall is a professor of modern Japanese cultural history and communication at Shizuoka University. In addition to his teaching duties, he has been a research fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto (2012-2013), a visiting curator at WWII-related museums in Japan and the United States, and a technical consultant and commentator for numerous historical documentaries in both Western and Japanese media.

His best-known works to date include: "Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze" (2005); "Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses (2024)"; and its companion volume, the upcoming "Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses (2025)". He has lived and worked in Japan continuously since 1987.

Doors open at 5:45 pm with a casual "meet the author/cocktail time" from 6:00 pm. Dinner will be served from 6:30 pm and the talk begins at 7:15 pm.

The menu is Cobb Salad, White Fish Baked with Herbs and Breadcrumbs in Tomato Sauce, Bread, Today's Dessert, Coffee or Tea, and One beverage of choice (orange juice, oolong tea, red or white wine, beer).  A vegetarian option is available. Please inform the club of food restrictions when reserving (front@fccj.or.jp). Price: 3,000 yen for members, 4,000 yen for non-members.

The member reservation deadline is 2 pm August 4, non-members must reserve and pay by Thursday, July 31, 2025.

Online attendance (Zoom) is available by reservation at 550 yen per person.

No cancellations after Friday, August 1.

Library, Archives & Workroom Committee
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ)