Antiwar ‘Barefoot Gen’ author dead at 73

japantimes.co.jp
December 26, 2012

Keiji Nakazawa, author of “Hadashi no Gen” (“Barefoot Gen”), an iconic comic about the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing, has died of lung cancer at a hospital in the city, sources said Tuesday. He was 73.

Nakazawa, who died last Wednesday, based “Barefoot Gen” on his own life, telling the story of a boy who survived the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

The popular antiwar story, which was serialized in the 1970s and 1980s, is based on his experience of the atomic bombing at age 6 while on his way to school about 1.2 km from the hypocenter.