A girl, fourteen years old

 ̶　a hibakusha , a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped
on Nagasaki. In time, she would transform that experience into words ̶ 　and become a writer. 
She bore witness, one by one, to the deaths, the lives, the souls of those who had been there.
She wrote on. What shore does a writer reach, having borne witness for a lifetime ̶     and crossed into her sixtieth year?

Why now

The trail Kyoko Hayashi blazed as a woman writer̶the legacy of the words she left behind̶      is the reason I am able to stand where I stand today. 
This reality when Japan has directly experienced atomic bombing and nuclear disaster, even as the world moves toward not nuclear disarmament but rearmament, her work, I believe, serves as a guidepost for survival.
This summer marks the eighty-first anniversary of the development and dropping of the atomic bomb. I feel strongly that now more than ever, we must listen closely to the words Kyoko Hayashi left behind ̶ beginning with this very story, which has been out of print. I want to place it once more into readers' hands ̶ in Japanese, and also,
for the first time, in English. ̶ Erika Kobayashi, Founder, arbaro books On August 9, 2026 ̶     the eighty-first anniversary of the atomic bombing ofNagasaki ̶
arbaro books will release The Bride at Sixty , an English-language digital art book edition of the celebrated short story by Kyoko Hayashi. 

This marks the first English-language publication of this work. The Japanese-language edition, 還暦の花嫁, will be released simultaneously as a separate digital art book.

Kyoko Hayashi (1930‒2017) 

was fourteen years old when she survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in Japan. Years later, after marriage and giving birth, she began to write about that experience ̶ and made her debut as a writer. A recipient of the Akutagawa Prize (1975), the Kawabata Yasunari Prize (1983), and the Tanizaki Prize (1990), among others, she devoted her entire life to bearing witness: not as a reporter of catastrophe, but as a writer who returned, again and again, to each individual death, each individual life, each individual soul who had lived through that day beside her.

The Bride at Sixty （ “ Kashi no Ki no Tēburu （ The Oak Table ）” , included in a collection published by Chūō Kōronsha (1996), currently out of print） is one of her later works, written when Hayashi herself was around kanreki ̶ the sixtieth year in the Japanese calendar, a moment of symbolic rebirth. In it, she weaves together the lives of women survivors, asking what it means to have endured, and what becomes of those who carry such a past into old age.

The Bride at Sixty 

is translated into English by Brian Bergstrom ̶     lecturer, translator, and recipient of the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature ̶    whose body of work has long championed Japanese women's writing in translation, including Sunrise: Radiant Stories by Erika Kobayashi (Astra House, 2023) and The Dilemmas of Working Women by FumioYamamoto (HarperVia, 2025).

Design is by Brennan Kelly ̶     graphic designer, artist, and educator born on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, who teaches in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Tkaronto/Toronto. Kelly brings to this collaboration the same exacting visual sensibility that distinguished arbaro books' debut title Seeing the Light (translated by Winifred Bird, August 2025). 

The art book features original drawings by Erika Kobayashi.
arbaro books was founded by Erika Kobayashi ̶    writer, artist, winner of the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, Akutagawa Prize nominee, and author of Trinity, Trinity, Trinity and SUNRISE: Radiant Stories (both translated by Brian Bergstrom, Astra House), and the forthcoming novel Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs(translated by Yuki Tejima, New Directions / Fitzcarraldo Editions) ̶    with a dedication to bringing Japanese literature and art related to the atomic bomb and the nuclear age to readers around the world. 

arbaro is the Esperanto word for forest: "Just as individual trees come together to form forests, we hope that with the help of many people, our books will cross borders, become rooted, and create a new world.

*As its debut title, arbaro books published the first English-language edition of Erika Kobayashi's graphic novel Seeing the Light ̶     originally published in Japanese as 光の⼦ども (Little More)̶.    as a Kindle e-book in August 2025, with translation by Winifred Bird and design by Brennan Kelly.

About the Author

Kyoko Hayashi (林京⼦, 1930‒2017) was born in Nagasaki, Japan and spent her early years in Shanghai. 
Returning to Nagasaki, she was exposed to the atomic bomb while working as a student mobilized laborer at the Mitsubishi Munitions Factory. After marriage and giving birth, she drew on her experience of the bombing to write Ritual of Death (Matsuri no Ba ), which received the 73rd Akutagawa Prize. The companion work Cut Glass, Blown Glass (Giyaman Bīdoro ) was recommended for the Ministry of Education Arts Encouragement Prize for New Artists, which she declined.

She carried August 9th with her throughout her entire life ̶ bearing witness, one by one, to each individual death, each individual life, each individual soul who had lived through that day beside her. For several years she lived with her eldest son's family in Virginia, in the United States. Her works include From Trinity to Trinity (Toriniti kara Toriniti e ), written after visiting Trinity Site in New Mexico where the world's first atomic bomb test was conducted; Shūkaku (Harvest), depicting a man tilling a potato field after the JCO Tokaimura nuclear criticality accident; and To Rui, Once Again (Futatabi Rui e ), written in epistolary form after the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. She devoted her entire life to contemplating the atomic bomb, nuclear weapons, and what it means to be human in their shadow. She died at the age of 86. Her major works include Shanghai (Shanhai ), which received the Women's Literature Prize; A Home in Three Worlds (Sangai no Ie ), which received the Kawabata Yasunari Prize; and The Human Experience Over a Long Time ( Nagai Jikan o Kaketa Ningen no Keiken ), which received the Noma Literary Prize.

About the Translator

Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer and translator who has lived in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. His writing and translations have appeared in publications including Granta , Aperture , Paris Review , and The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories . His translation of Erika Kobayashiʼs novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity (Astra House, 2022) won the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. His latest translation is The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto (HarperVia, 2025). He is currently based in Montréal, Canada.

About the Designer & Artist

Brennan Kelly is a graphic designer, artist, and educator born on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory. He received a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communications from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2008, a Post-baccalaureate Diploma in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University in 2015, and a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art from the University of Guelph in 2018. He currently maintains a hybridized professional practice that moves between the spaces of art and design, while teaching in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Tkaronto/Toronto. 
brennankelly.ca


Erika Kobayashi is a Tokyo-based novelist, visual artist, and founder of arbaro books, whose work weaves together archival research, historical fact, and fiction to explore what cannot be seen ̶     time, radiation, memory, and the invisible structures of science and politics. Her practice spans literature, comics, and installation-based visual art. Her novel Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs received the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award and is forthcoming in English from New Directions (US) and Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), translated by Yuki Tejima. Her novel Breakfast with Madame Curie was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. Her previous works include Trinity, Trinity, Trinity and SUNRISE: Radiant Stories , both translated by Brian Bergstrom (Astra House), and the graphic novel Seeing the Light , translated by Winifred Bird (arbaro books, 2025). Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 13th Berlin Biennale (2025, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin). 
erikakobayashi.com

About the Publisher

arbaro books is an independent e-book publisher named after the Esperanto word for “forest.” It was established by Tokyo-based writer and artist Erika Kobayashi in 2025, marking 80 years since the development and dropping of the atom bombs and the start of the nuclear age. The project was born from a desire to bring Japanese novels, stories, comics, and art books related to this cultural reality to readers of English and other languages. Just as individual trees come together to form forests, we hope that with the help of many people, our books will cross borders, root themselves in new soil, and create a new world.

The End of Nuclear Literature
Recall the past, resist now. 

arbarobooks.com

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