July 2025

On July 30 2025, Naoko met the cherry creator Masatoshi Asari, 94, in Nanae, Hokkaido. Asari is Japan’s most renowned cherry tree creator and he is one of three protagonists in Naoko’s latest book, The Martyr and the Red Kimono. They met in a sushi restaurant in Nanae-cho, near Asari’s home.           Asari created 116 new cherry tree varieties after the war. They are called  ‘Matsumae Cherries’ as a group. He has sent thousands of his cherries overseas in the past 50 years, mainly to the countries that Japan had invaded or inflicted sufferings during the war.  They were his ‘peace offerings’ intended to achieve reconciliation […]

On July 26 2025, Naoko gave a talk in Nagasaki, which features prominently in her new book. The venue was appropriately, Nyoko-do, the former home of Dr. Takashi Nagai. He was a renowned Catholic doctor who looked after the severely injured after the August 9 1945 atomic bombing. Dr. Nagai gave a speech in November 1945 at a memorial mass held in the ruins of Urakami Cathedral to commemorate the people killed in the atomic blast. He told the survivors that the blast could have been ‘God’s Providence’. The atomic bomb detonated above Asia’s largest Cathedral and destroyed the Japanese Catholic community. The Cathedral had been built as a symbol

The Japanese edition of ‘The Martyr and the Red Kimono’ was published on July 17 2025 by Iwanami Shoten.  Its title is very different from the English edition, ‘Following the Footsteps of the Saint at Auschwitz —A story of a hibakusha and a sakuramori. It is a timely publication because this year is the 80th anniversary of  the end of the Pacific War and the dropping of the atomic bombs. The book is about war and peace and one of the protagonists is a Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor.   Hot off the press.  Naoko holding the new book