The Mother of Sorrows as Hibakusha

Abstract

The figure of the Mother of Sorrows has particular poignancy in Urakami a suburb just north of Nagasaki city in Japan. In 1945, the sizeable Catholic community of Nagasaki was shattered by the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, having experienced a history of suffering and repression over 250 years. In this chapter, I examine how remembering the bombing through the sacred figure of Mary (Maria in Japanese) is a localized appropriation of commemoration which acts as a corrective to the domination of Hiroshima in collective memory of the bombings, and how memories of the bombing of Nagasaki are juxtaposed against narratives of the period of Christian persecution.