The Horrors and Heroes of Hiroshima

Hiroshima Diary, the books

The Slovakian cover of Hiroshima Diary has a black background on the bottom quarter of the book with the book title in white capital letters. They slightly rise from left to right and behind the text are what looks like brush strokes of red. Resting on this black background is a person's head. We see their side profile. The chin is tipped up, their eyes are closed, the skin and hair are not marred by injury. Their skin is a light yellow color, their hair is black, and their features are outline in white and black. The background is a blue gray color. The author's name is at the top left corner in white text.
The cover from Czechoslovakia is perhaps the most stylized of the group of book covers. The two bottom corners features alternating black and yellow stripes, some thin and straight, but most vary in width and look more like lightning bolts or torn paper edges in their shape. A good portion of the book, maybe half of it is black, starting between the bottom corners and reaching toward the top quarter of the book. The author's name and book title are in the white text in this black space, but also between the bottom corners is an eye. The sclera, the normally white part of the eye is a deep red color. The iris is yellow, and the pupil is black. The yellow and black lines that start at the bottom left corner seem to wrap around and continue above the text and toward the top of the black part of the book. Above this is a thicker white line that extends across the width of the cover, that is again craggy and varying in size. The black part looks like the peaks of mountains in the forefront with slightly taller white mountains behind them. Above these white mountain peaks is a yellow background with mostly thin black stripes shooting out from the mountains, some on top of the white.
The Slovenian edition of Hiroshima Diary has a, from top to bottom, color scheme of teal, red, teal, black, with stylized white brush strokes to separate the bands of color. A stylized outline of a torii in white starts at the white brush stroke separating the bottom black and teal bands and reaches nearly the top of the cover. An outline of a person is in black at the bottom center of the torii. They are on their hands and knees and are crawling. The author's name and the book title are in white text within the black band of the book. An additional marketing piece has been removed from around the cover and is placed under the cover. It is a white or cream colored piece of paper with an image in red and white instead of black and white. The image is of a child with a completely bandaged face, with spaces for their eyes, nose and mouth. They are sitting on a wheeled, open top cart with their feet reaching the ground. A person is sitting behind them and another person is behind them, perhaps pushing the cart. Finnish text is next to the photo. It presumably is promoting the book. The quote is attributed to Pearl Buck.
The Finnish cover of Hiroshima Diary has a black background. An outline of the Genbaku, or A-Bomb, Dome is in yellow and taking up the bottom two-thirds of the cover. The building was famous before the bombing for its copper dome, and not only withstood the bombing, one of the few buildings to do so, but the frame of the dome was still intact. Thin yellow lines cross the cover in the same area that the building is pictured. Interrupting the top left of the yellow lined area is the book's subtitle in white text. At the top of the cover, there is the black background without lines. The author's name is in white at the top left, while the title is in larger red letters.
The Italian cover of Hiroshima Diary features a faded black and white photo showing the destruction of Hiroshima on the bottom two-thirds of the cover. A white block is at the top with the author's name and book title in black text, all Serif with a mix of capitalized and lowercase letters, the author's name italicized, the name of the book in bold. The publisher's name is at the bottom of the cover in black text. A tall mushroom cloud takes up most of the height of the cover, with the top of it right below the author's name. It is off-center, more to the right, taking up two-thirds of the book at its widest point. It is the same mushroom cloud image from the Dutch cover, but this one is a deep red color in the portions that would have been black or gray. It is transparent so the image of the destruction still shows through.
Out of all of the Hiroshima Diary covers, the Spanish language version published in Argentina is perhaps the most understated. The bottom part is a green-blue color that takes up about one-third of the cover. The publisher name, Emecé, is in black, sans-Serif, capital text at the bottom. The top portion of the book is in a cream color, perhaps it used to be white but changed with time. The author's name is in black, capital, sans-Serif font across the top. In the same green-blue color from the bottom, the title of the book is in the largest font, a capitalized Serif font that reads " Diario de Hiroshima". A black bar is beneath that with cream or formally white, lowercase letters in a sans-Serif font that reads "episodios de guerra".
The Dutch version of Hiroshima Diary is mostly a white cover with a black and white image of a tall mushroom cloud from the bottom to the nearly the top of the cover, taking up two-thirds of the right side so it is off-center. In front of it, centered across the cover, is black sans-Serif text in large text and all capital letters that reads "Hiroshima Daboek". Smaller text, still in all capitals, in black and sans-Serif, centered but toward the bottom of the cover is the subtitle and author name. Taking up the bottom half of the cover and off-center, taking up three-quarters of the cover starting from the left-side is the outline of a torii, a Japanese gateway. It is in a blue-gray color.
The Japanese cover of Hiroshima Diary is mostly black and white. In the upper left corner is an orange-filled box with black text in Japanese, presumably with the book title and author name. The black and white image is a close-up image of the destruction. There are the downed branches of a tree in the forefront. The background has maybe the skeletal remains of a building but it is difficult to discern.
The back cover of the Japanese edition of Hiroshima Diary shows the rest of the tree that is featured on the front cover. The black and white image shows the trunk of the tree tipping to the left. A person stands next to the tree, looking up at it. In the background are some far away buildings. The forefront, though, looks very flat, gray, and empty except for mounds of dirt and debris.
The UK hardcover edition of Hiroshima Diary is mostly a gray blue color. The title and author are in white text, with the subtitle and the author's affiliation in black text. An orange red marketing panel is added across the middle of the book with black text that reads "Bertrand Russell writes: One of the most moving books I have ever read; Robert Oppenheimer: I am grateful for its publication; Group-Captain Cheshire, V.C., writes: It will no doubt rank as a war-book of the first importance"
The cover is mostly in black and white with red text for the title, Diário de Hiroshima. The author's name, Michihiko Hachiya, is in white in the top right corner. The publisher, Edições AOV, is in white text, centered, across the bottom of the book. The title is set to the right of the book so the D from Diário is next to the bottom of a mushroom cloud. The cloud is the only discernible object in the photo. It looks like a sky, with some small white clouds dotted throughout, then the mushroom cloud rising up to take up two-thirds of the cover on the left side.

Hiroshima Diary, Portuguese cover

Hiroshima Diary captured the attention of other publishers. In addition to the Latvian copy of Hiroshima Diary are many other translations, with copies being sent to Dr. Hachiya, Dr. Wells, and UNC Press. Dr. Hachiya shared with Lambert Davis, the director of UNC Press, that he sometimes hosted visitors in his office who were seeking his autograph. The people were drawn to the bookshelf which featured the different language editions, a picture of Dr. Wells and his wife, and Warner Wells's O. Max Gardner Award. This was his "treasure book shelf".

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