Hiroshima
The series that looks at books, plays and stories and how they work. John Yorke examines John Hersey’s book Hiroshima - a piece that brought home the horrors of nuclear war.
In the months that followed the end of the Second World War, very few people in the West knew the true power of the atomic weaponry that had forced the Japanese surrender. John Hersey’s article Hiroshima would change that.
Released a year after the bombs were dropped, the New Yorker piece was journalistic dynamite and sold out in hours. Published in one instalment - taking up the whole edition of the magazine - Hersey’s meticulous and unflinching account of what happened after the atom bomb detonated brought home the horror of atomic weaponry to the world and changed journalism in the process.
John Yorke speaks to Janine di Giovanni, award winning war reporter and founder of The Reckoning Project (a war crimes unit that operates in Ukraine and the Middle East) about how pivotal the article was and how it impacts her work today.
John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for R4.
Contributors:
Janine di Giovanni, war reporter and founder of The Reckoning Project.
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker
John Hersey, author
Archive:
The David Remnick audio, and the John Hersey interview (taken from the American Audio Prose Library interview conducted by Kay Bonetti Callison, 1988) were both originally broadcast as part of Hersey’s Hiroshima produced by Dora Productions Ltd, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4 2016.
Reader: Riley Neldam
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Tolly Robinson
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4
On radio
Broadcast
- Sun 10 Aug 2025 14:45ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4
Podcast
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Opening Lines
John Yorke unpacks the themes behind the stories in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.
