As death approaches, an old Japanese man finds it necessary to clean his soul, to confront the mistakes of his youth, and to confess about a time when he might have been able to save the thousands who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The title novella is complemented by Suspended: Five Stories.
In the rest of the collection, through Barkan's beautifully direct style and canny ability to enter the mind, the reader gets to know a wide range of characters intimately. In Forty, a man from Boston travels to a wildlife refuge in Uganda, seeking to overcome a personal crisis. In Suspended, an amnesiac in Hawaii attempts to discover his real identity. Shanghaied features two lonely co-workers searching for love and excitement while on vacation. Banana Bat tells of a newlywed couple, honeymooning in Costa Rica, working to patch up an already faltering marriage. And in The Warrior, a young man falls in love with a woman whose fiancé committed suicide following the Gulf War.
About the Author
 JOSHUA BARKAN has taught writing at Harvard and Boston University and in
2006 received a literature grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
His MFA is from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He spent much of his childhood abroad, living in Kenya, Tanzania, France and India.
After attending Yale University, where he was awarded writing fellowships, he spent a year teaching in Japan. Before Hiroshima is his first published collection of stories. He lives with his wife in New York City.
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The Critics Praise:
“A fine story, we’d be happy to have more.”
Saul Bellow
“Barkan is an impressive storyteller who captures a difficult subject with an easy charm.”
THE TIMES, LONDON
“Before Hiroshima is a finished and quite gripping work …an intellectual as well as a moral thriller …Joshua Barkan is a young writer to watch.”
THE JAPAN TIMES
“The book is an impressive debut.”
THE NOTRE DAME REVIEW
“The power of Barkan's narratives lies in his characters, who are as three-dimensionally human as they come.”
BALTIMORE CITY REVIEW
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