With our television screens full of bombing and destruction, Ebury Press, part of Penguin Random House, has acquired an eyewitness account of the world’s deadliest bombing raid. Ebury Press will posthumously publish Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir by Kiyoshi Tanimoto.
The publisher says: “At approximately 8:15 on the morning of 6th August 1945, Tanimoto, a Methodist minister, was on the outskirts of Hiroshima when a flash in the sky signalled the birth of a horrifying new world. In the days, weeks and months that followed this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he dedicated himself to rebuilding not only his church but his city and his nation.
“Tanimoto went on to gain global renown as one of the survivors featured in John Hersey’s seminal book, Hiroshima, but it was only in the past couple of years that Tanimoto’s own firsthand account, written in the immediate aftermath, has been discovered and now will be published for the first time.”
Ebury editor Shammah Banerjee acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Mark Lucas at the Soho Agency in a three-way auction.
The book will feature a foreword from Tanimoto’s eldest daughter, Koko Kondo, who still lives in Hiroshima and has campaigned for global nuclear disarmament for the past 40 years. Ebury Press will publish the memoir in hardback, e-book and audio on 6th August 2026, while Modern Library of Random House US will publish in North America.
Banerjee said: “It is a real privilege to be working with the inspirational Koko Kondo to bring her father’s memoir into the world, both a document of historical importance and a moving testament to the power of human resilience and the strength that brings us together. And at this time, it feels more pressing than ever that the experience of these survivors is not forgotten but passed down the generations.”
