The Bells of Nagasaki

Takashi Nagai author William Johnston translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Publishing:31st Jul '25

£14.99

This title is due to be published on 31st July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The Bells of Nagasaki cover

Witness the best and the worst of humanity in The Bells of Nagasaki. . .

On 9th August 1945, the Japanese city of Nagasaki is hit by an atomic bomb. Forty thousand people are killed instantly. Doctor Takashi Nagai is not one of them.


Pulling himself, broken and bloodied, from the wreckage that was once the city’s university hospital, Takashi bundles together a tattered group of survivors. Doctors, nurses, students, each with their own injuries and losses, their own bone-chilling fears for the future, they work tirelessly at the impossible task of aiding the countless wounded and easing the deaths of the dying. They remain determined to heal their fallen city, to find solace and hope among the rubble, even as a strange and growing sickness begins to claim them, one by one.

Eyewitness to one of the most fatal events in human history, this is Takashi’s record, written from his sickbed – a chilling historical document, and undeniable evidence of the capacity for human kindness.

‘A book that everyone should read’ The Times

A book that everyone should read * The Times *
A vivid first-hand account of the nuclear destruction of Nagasaki.... The testament of one of the most remarkable men in post-war Japan * Bloomsbury Review *

ISBN: 9781529952605

Dimensions: 204mm x 132mm x 25mm

Weight: 500g

176 pages