Continuing fallout

Featured in

  • Published 20150505
  • 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 Christmas story

MemoirJUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, six soldiers were shot in their beds in the Officers’ Quarters on Christmas Island. Their bodies were wrapped in bed sheets...

A legend with class

EssayFOR THE AUSTRALIAN labour movement, Anzac has been more like a first cousin than a close sibling. There is no missing the family connection:...

Making nations

IntroductionIT SEEMS POIGNANTLY appropriate that the web address gallipoli.net.au, which features the logo ‘Gallipoli: The Making of a Nation’, is owned by Michael Erdeljac...

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