Last Gasp will publish Keiji Nakazawa’s prose memoir, tentatively titled Barefoot Gen Can’t Forget, as well as a new edition of his early manga I Saw It, which was first published by EduComics in 1982. The publisher announced on Twitter that both books will be published next year.
Nakazawa was six years old and living in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped in August 1945. Most of his family was killed in the bombing, but Nakazawa, his mother, and his infant sister survived. As an adult, Nakazawa became a professional manga creator. He first told his own story in I Saw It, which was published in Monthly Shonen Jump in 1972. His next work, the 10-volume series Barefoot Gen, built on that story in an expanded, fictionalized depiction of life during and after the bombing. The first two volumes of Barefoot Gen were translated by volunteers and published in English by EduComics in 1976, making it the first English translation of a full-length manga. Last Gasp published the series in full beginning in 2004 (see “Last Gasp Readies New Edition of ‘Barefoot Gen’”). Nakazawa died in 2012 (see “R.I.P. Keiji Nakazawa”).
Source: ICV2
