Description

A Song for Nagasaki is the story of Takashi Nagai, M.D., pioneer professor of radiology at the University of Nagasaki, who died of atomic disease six years after the second atomic bomb incinerated his wife and home. It is also the story of his spiritual pilgrimage from his native Shintoism to atheistic rationalism and then to a rationalist complacency disturbed by Pascal’s Pensees. HB heart, convinced by the fervor of the familyi he boarded with, converted to a lovely Christian faith.

Skillfully weaving Japanese culture and the history of Christianity in japan throughout the development of Nagai’s intellectual arf3 spiritual growth, Glynn (an Australian Marist who has served over 20 years infJapan) not only broadens the reader’s perspective but deljply touches the heart.”

BOB FLYNN, America

Paul Glynn has written an absorbing account of the life of a man raised in the Shinto faith whose conversion in no way altered his essential Japaneseness”. An admirable book”.

– GROUP CAPTAIN LEONARD CHESHIRE

The most effective argument against nuclear war that 1 have yet read, partly because it evokes a gut response and m$kes me weep, and partly because it is an uplifting story of unimaginable heroism. It is also a testimony fe the tenacity and goodness of the human

Contents

Chapter Page

1 Calmness, the Number One Son

2 Fireflies, Snow and a Lioness

3 Kublai Khan, Tsune and Pascal

4 The Mouse who Couldn’t See the Stars

5 ’tis an 111 Wind…

6 The Hidden Christians

7 The Bells of Nagasaki

8 Dew on a Morning Glory

9 Silent Night and a Precious Life

10 The Virgin and the Prostitute 81

11 “The Great Pan is Dead” 89

12 At the Feet of a Janitor-Sensei 93

13 White Australia and the Yellow Peril 101

14 Typhoons and Graceful Bamboo 109

15 A Christian Nenbutsu and the Dark Night 117

16 “Arrogant Iieike Tumble” 125

17 The Machine that Turned on its Master 131

18 “But Midori will be Beside Me…” 139

19 When the Sun turned Black 147

20 And the Rain Turned Poison 151

21 The Last Black Hole in the Universe? 159

22 Talking Bones and a New Mantra 163

23 High Noon, and a Nation Wept 167

24 “Not from Chance our Comfort Springs” 174

25 The Parable of the Bare Hut 184

26 The Little Girl who Couldn’t Ciy 190

27 The Song of a Tokyo Leper 202

28 The Blue bird who Visited the Bear 207

29 “The Navel of the World” 216

30 Cherry Blossoms Fall on the Third Day 225

31 “For all that has been. Thanks.

For all that will be. Yes” 232