is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

 and writer.

He was born in Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 and was in the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...

 in 1945. All of his family members who had not been evacuated died in the bombing except for his mother, and an infant sister who died several weeks after the bombing. In 1961, Nakazawa moved to Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 to become a full-time cartoonist, and produced short pieces for manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 anthologies

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 such as Shōnen Gaho, Shōnen King, and Bokura.

Following the death of his mother in 1966, Nakazawa returned to his memories of the destruction of Hiroshima and began to express them in his stories. Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain), the first of a series of five books, was a fictional story of Hiroshima survivors

Hibakusha

The surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called , a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people"...

 involved in the postwar black market

Underground economy

A black market or underground economy is a market in goods or services which operates outside the formal one supported by established state power. Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the definite article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and...

. Nakazawa chose to portray his own experience directly in the 1972 story Ore wa Mita, published in Monthly Shōnen Jump

Monthly Shonen Jump

is a now defunct monthly shōnen manga magazine published in Japan by Shueisha from 1970 to 2007 under the Jump line of magazines. It was the sister magazine to Weekly Shōnen Jump.- History :...

. The story was translated into English and published as a one-shot comic book by Educomics as I Saw It

I Saw It

I Saw It: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima: A Survivor's True Story, titled in Japanese, is a one-shot manga by Keiji Nakazawa that first appeared in 1972 as a 48-page feature in the magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump, which at the time was a spin-off issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump. The story was later...

.

Immediately after completing I Saw It, Nakazawa began his major work, Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen

is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family...

). This series, which eventually filled ten volumes

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

, was based on the same events as I Saw It but fictionalized, with the young Gen as a stand-in for the author. Barefoot Gen depicted the bombing and its aftermath in graphic detail but also turned a critical eye on the militarization of Japanese society

Japanese militarism

refers to the ideology in the Empire of Japan that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation.-Rise of militarism :...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and on the sometimes abusive dynamics of the traditional family. Barefoot Gen was adapted into two animated

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 films and a live action TV drama.

Nakazawa announced his retirement in September 2009 citing deteriorating diabetes and cataract

Cataract

A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...

conditions. He has cancelled plans for a Barefoot Gen sequel.

In September 2010, Nakazawa was diagnosed with lung cancer and in July 2011,metastasis from lung cancer was found.