The book Hiroshima mon amour, by Marguerite Duras, and the related film, were partly inspired by the bombing. The film version, directed by Alain Resnais, has some documentary footage of burn victims and the aftereffects of devastation.
The story of Sadako Sasaki, a young Hiroshima survivor diagnosed with leukemia, has been recounted in a number of books and films. Two of the best known of these works are Karl Bruckner's The Day of the Bomb, translated into 22 languages and Eleanor Coerr's Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Sasaki, confined to a hospital because of her leukemia, created 644 origami cranes, in reference to a Japanese legend which granted one wish to whoever could fold 1,000 cranes.
Native American novelist Gerald Vizenor's "kabuki novel", Hiroshima Bugi, compares the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing to the aftermath of the conquest of the Americas.
The FrenchMadame Atomos series of novels by André Caroff features a female Japanese scientist seeking revenge upon the United States because she lost her family in the destruction of Nagasaki.
The bombing of Nagasaki is a plot point in Min Jin Lee's novel Pachinko.
Manga
The Japanese manga "Hadashi no Gen" is a manga which deals with the bombing in Hiroshima.
Music
The musical piece "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" by Krzysztof Penderecki was written in 1960 as a reaction to what the composer believed to be a senseless act. On 12 October 1964, Penderecki wrote: "Let the Threnody express my firm belief that the sacrifice of Hiroshima will never be forgotten and lost."
Masao Ohki’s 1953 Symphony No. 5 "Hiroshima", was one of the first of many Japanese works to be dedicated to the tragedy of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, based on six paintings by Iri and Toshi Maruki, The Hiroshima Panels, to which Ohki added a Prelude and a final Elegy.
Toshio Hosokawa's oratorio "Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima" for soloists, narrators, chorus, tape and orchestra after Matsuo Bashō, Paul Celan and Genbaku no Ko.
Alfred Schnittke's early work, the oratorio Nagasaki, in five movements, on Soviet and Japanese lyrics.
The Canadian rock band Rush's song "Manhattan Project", from their 1985 album Power Windows, is about the development of the atomic bomb and its use against Japan.
The book Hiroshima mon amour served as inspiration for the like-titled 1977 song by the British new wave band Ultravox.
The rock band Wishful Thinking had a hit in 1971 with "Hiroshima", a song about the bombing.
The Japanese rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel recorded the song "Hoshizora" on the 2005 "Awake" album using Hiroshima as a metaphor of the devastation of war. The song was also dedicated to the victims of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The song "Nuclear Attack" by Swedish power metal band Sabaton, from their album Attero Dominatus, is about the bombings and their effect on the Japanese people.
Art
Artists Stephen Moore and Ann Rosenthal examine 60 years of living in the shadow of the bomb in their decade-long art project "Infinity City." They document their travels to historical sites on three continents and explores their art installations and web works reflecting on America's nuclear legacy.
The Hiroshima Panels, a series of fifteen painted folding panels by the collaborative husband and wife artists Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi completed over a span of thirty-two years, which depict the consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as other nuclear disasters of the 20th century.
- The story of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, based on Masuji Ibuse's novel.
- A detailed, semi-documentary dramatisation of the political decisions involved with the atomic bombings.
- Fictional drama that takes place in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing.
- Animated dramatization of the bombing of Hiroshima based on the writer's own experiences and the documented experiences of other survivors.
- Factual accounts of the events from Japanese survivors and American military.
The Wolverine
Television
In the South Park episode Whale Whores, in a satire of the whaling industry in Japan, the bombing of Hiroshima is referenced significantly in the episode as the primary motive for Japan to launch a crusade against every dolphin and whale in the world. A photo of the Enola Gay plane was doctored to replace the pilot and bombardier with a whale and a dolphin, therefore convincing the Japanese that these two animals are responsible for the devastating bombing. Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny however create a new doctored version of the photo, replacing the dolphin and whale with a cow and a chicken, and they convince the Japanese that the latter two animals were the real culprits of the bombing. Thus, the Japanese redirect their crusade to all the chickens and cows in the world.
Photography books
In The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger wrote "These three books, along with Kikuji Kawada's 'symbolic reportage' in Chizu, constitute photography's most significant memorials to the defining event in twentieth-century Japanese history."
