John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946) — The original and still essential account. Six survivors, their lives in the hours before the bomb, and their experiences in the aftermath. Hersey wrote it for the New Yorker, which dedicated its entire issue of 31 August 1946 to the piece. It is brief, devastating, and restrained. Read it before you go; nothing else will prepare you as well.
Tamiki Hara, Summer Flowers (1947) — A short story cycle by a poet who survived the bombing and wrote about it with extraordinary economy and clarity. Translated into English alongside other Hiroshima literature in the anthology Hiroshima: Three Witnesses. Hara died by suicide in 1951, unable to continue living in a world that could produce such a weapon.
Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain (1966) — A novel about Yasuko, a young woman trying to marry years after the bomb, and the stigma that survivors (hibakusha) faced from a society afraid of radiation contamination. Ibuse uses a fictional diary to recreate the days immediately after the blast with the density and texture of a documentary. One of the great Japanese novels of the 20th century.
Setsuko Thurlow, Setsuko Hiroshima (2022) — Memoir by one of the most prominent hibakusha activists, who was 13 years old on 6 August 1945 and survived by chance. She later became a central figure in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on its behalf in 2017. Honest about trauma, and clear-eyed about politics.