Nisei Veterans Memorial Center Announces Augst ʻAfternoon With The Authorʻ

Nisei Veterans Memorial Center, file photo by Wendy Osher.

The Nisei Veterans Memorial Center is announced its August “An Afternoon with the Author” ZOOM talk on Saturday, Aug. 8 at 1:30 p.m. Author Melinda Clarke will share the backstory to her book “Waymakers for Peace: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Survivors Speak.” Ms. Clarke spent several years in Japan interviewing Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, oftentimes in secret, due to the taboo put upon the topic by the government of Japan.

The talk will also include a showing of the documentary “Lost Generation”.

“Lost Generation” contains footage confiscated by the U.S. Occupation Forces after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The enactment of the Freedom of Information Act in 1976 allowed for the movie footage and photographs to become available for purchase and in 1980 Messrs. Tsutomu Iwakura and Kazumitsu Aihara formed the “10 Feet Movement”. With the help of NHK and a civil campaign of citizens from all over Japan sending in 3,000YEN per person, the men purchased 100,000 feet of footage and photos that were later used in three different movies. Ms. Clarke has gifted those films while she was conducting interviews of A-bomb survivors.

NVMC’s “An Afternoon With The Author” invites fiction and non-fiction writers from around Hawaii and the mainland into our homes. By means of ZOOM, the Center will host a different author each month to talk about their work, the story behind the story, and their personal journey while writing their book.

BIO:

Melinda Clarke is an accidental activist who began marching to her own tune after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Having lived in Japan in 1964, she had a calling to move back and began recording the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors’ stories. Her worldview shifted and it wasn’t long before she became a passionate advocate for peace. Ms. Clarke inspires others to live a life of peace and purpose and recently walked the 900 mile Shikoku Pilgrimage.