The Progressive has published Goddard MFA faculty member Kenny Fries‘s “A Healing Tree: Remembering Hiroshima” to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing.   “A Healing Tree” is adapted from an excerpt from his forthcoming book, In the Province of the Gods, which will be published by University Wisconsin Press in September.

“This August 6, some of the world will be thinking about Hiroshima.  But on off years, like this year’s 72nd anniversary, with all that’s going on across the globe, much of the world will probably be looking elsewhere, ” Kenny Fries writes.  “And when the world does think about Japan and nuclear radiation, it will likely think about the destruction of the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, and the radiation unleashed in the aftermath.”  In “A Healing Tree,” Fries recounts his meeting with Suzuko Numata, a disabled hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) in Hiroshima.
In the Province of the Gods received the Creative Capital literature grant, as well as support from the Japan/US Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.  A companion book, In the Gardens of Japan, a poem sequence, has been published by Garden Oak Press.