Hiroshima by John Hersey The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is a compelling text with a powerful message at its core. The book is a biographical text about the lives of six people, Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan, and how their lives changed completely at 8 :15 on August 6, 1945 with the launch of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language in the book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack. Through shocking and disturbing graphic details of human suffering and the physical effect of radiation and burns caused by the fall of the atomic bomb Hersey exposes the reader to the deeply disturbing physical impact of a nuclear attack. In the book, when Hersey writes about Mr. Tanimoto helping people out of the river, he uses the phrase, he bent down and took a woman by the hand but her skin slipped off forming a huge glove-like piece, to shock the reader with something atrocious. a person would expect to find it only in a horror film. By inserting that phrase into the text, Hersey exposes the physical effect that a nuclear attack has on the human body and suggests that we should never let this happen again. When the characters of Miss Sasaki, an office worker in her early twenties, is crushed by a shelf that falls on her due to the impact of the bomb and is seriously injured and left paralyzed, the author shows that the bomb did not only hit people directly by burning them or by radiation but also by structural damage. Another phrase that John Hersey uses to expound on the physical impact of a nuclear attack is that their faces were completely burned, their eye sockets were empty, and the fluid in their molten eyes had… middle of paper… . leaving them with only a few places to get help, which meant that many people didn't get the help they needed. Hersey tells this to the reader so they can fully understand the impact of an atomic bomb. Through his use of descriptive language Hersey exposes the reader to the physical, emotional, psychological, and structural damage caused by a nuclear attack. It shows the reader how people are changed physically but also how emotionally frightened psychologically by this act of horror. Through Hersey's graphic details of the horror after the bomb and the effects years later, he shocks the reader while at the same time conveying the message that we should not let this happen again. In the book Hiroshima, author John Hersey exposes that a nuclear attack is not simply a disaster that fades away when the rubble is cleared and buildings are rebuilt but an act of horror that changes the course of people's lives.