Born to parents exposed to radiation from the world's first atomic bombing — carried out by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945 — Mari Tamba said it is her responsibility to talk about the war to young people even though she did not directly experience it.

Tamba, 65, who lives in Ama, Aichi Prefecture, became a storyteller of the war and the atomic bombings about three years ago in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which was wrecked by the powerful March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

In November last year, Tamba spoke before some 30 students at a high school in Nagoya. As usual, she began her speech by conveying her father's experience with the atomic bomb, as taken from a diary he wrote after the war.