Masamoto Nasu

Nasu was born in Hiroshima. When he was three years old, he survived the atomic bombing of the city by the United States on 6 August 1945; the hypocenter was three kilometers from his home.^[1]

He studied forest entomology at the Shimane Agricultural University and worked as an office worker in Tokyo before returning to Hiroshima.^[2] His writing debut was in 1972, with Kubinashi jizo no takara (The treasure of the headless jizo).^[3]

In 1978 he started to write the series of books Zukkoke sannin-gumi (The funny trio), featuring the adventures of three elementary school children: Hachibei, Hakase and Moo-chan. The series, published until 2004, became a hit, spanning fifty books which sold more than 25 million copies in Japan; it was made into a feature film, an anime and a television series.^[4]

Nasu wrote often about the aftermath of the atomic bombings, opposing war and advocating peace. Two of his books were translated to English: the 1984 memoir Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease and the 1995 picture book Hiroshima: A tragedy never to be repeated.^[5]

Nasu died on 22 July 2021, in Hofu, Yamaguchi Prefecture.^[4]