Continuing fallout

Featured in

  • Published 20150414
  • ISBN: 9781922182807
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

THE STORY OF Japan’s marriage to nuclear energy is so fraught with suffering, you have to wonder why they ever got together.

Just what are the dynamics of this abusive relationship? It’s easy to look at a bad marriage and shake your head over it in disbelief. To an outsider, the stark facts of the matter can seem glaringly obvious. But from the inside, the view is often very different. When I went to Japan after the post-tsunami nuclear accident at Fukushima, I anticipated that mention of Hiroshima would be thick in the air. It is an astonishing and tragic fate, surely, to find yourself not once but twice the victim of nuclear damage on an unprecedented scale, and the terrible story of Hiroshima is very far from forgotten in Japan. But people were oddly resistant when I mentioned the connection: ‘It’s really very different,’ was the general response.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Meredith McKinney

Meredith McKinney lived in Kyoto for twenty years. She is a visiting fellow at the Japan Centre, Australian National University, and translates classical and...

More from this edition

A remarkable man

MemoirRAY PARKIN TOLD stories. He wasn’t exactly the Ancient Mariner, but there was an insistence and a very steady eye about the way he...

An unexpected bequest

EssayIT IS IMPOSSIBLE to look at daguerreotypes of nineteenth-century Australian women in their hats and heavy, long dresses without wondering how they managed to...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.