A Boy Called H
(Shonen H)

RUSSIAN / Tatiana Redko

Kodansha (1997)

Hajime Senoh was born in Kobe, where many foreign people lived, and brought up by caring parents. His father was a tailor who owned a clothing shop, and his mother was a faithful Christian. He was nicknamed "H" by his friends because he was wearing a sweater with "H" knitted on the front. Surrounded by his family and happy and cheerful friends, the boy H was busy playing around.

Meanwhile, having concluded a military alliance with Germany and Italy, Japan becomes hostile to Britain and the United States of America, and war starts to cast a shadow over the people's lives. After the outbreak of war, the fires of war come closer and closer to him and his family. One night, Kobe is air bombed, and H and his mother try frantically to escape from the severe air raid. "What is this war thing?" "Grown-ups, newspapers… they are all liars!" says the boy. No one tells the truth. No one can tell the truth. That is the "war".

Japan accepts the Potsdam Declaration and loses the war. On August 15, 1945, when the war ends, what does H see? This is the author's first novel, one of the best stage designers in Japan, also known as essayist. This book is a biographical work about the Pacific War from the perspective of a boy called H who was full of curiosity and had a very strong sense of justice.