VERGUN

Vergun to discuss her translation of a Hiroshima survivor’s memoir

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2009-05-28T00:00:00

Dr. Pamela Bea Wilson Vergun of Beaverton will discuss author Sadako Teiko Okuda’s “A Dimly Burning Wick: Memoir from the Ruins of Hiroshima,” on June 4 at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Booksellers in North Portland.

The book is a memoir of Okuda’s experience in the immediate aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Vergun, a Stanford-trained sociologist who also graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, translated the book into English. She said Okuda focused especially on “the terror and tenderness of children and teenagers who—even in their final hours—gently cared for their siblings, parents, grandparents and friends.”

Vergun also will discuss her experience of working with Okuda and present an analysis of the current international situation.

The event at St. Johns Booksellers is a benefit for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

“A Dimly Burning Wick” was adapted from a diary begun in Hiroshima by Okuda within a day of the atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945.

Now 94, Okuda, was a 30-year-old schoolteacher at the time of the bombing when she began a desperate search for her missing niece and nephew in the days immediately following the devastation.

Okuda recorded in her diary the stories of children she encountered searching for parents and siblings, who brought water to dying grandparents, and sometimes literally expended their last breaths trying to help their loved ones.

Throughout the book, the reader is asked to ponder how it is that in the midst of one of the most horrific wartime events in history, an ordinary person can document for the world the selfless compassion of its youngest victims?

Tickets to the bookstore event are $5 and are available at the bookstore, 8622 N. Lombard St., and by phone, 503-283-0032, or by e-mail, info@stjohnsbooks.com. More information is available at their Web site, stjohnsbooks.com.

Ticket holders receive $2 off the purchase of “A Dimly Burning Wick.” Physicians for Social Responsibility will receive $3 from each ticket sold.