Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda,

Around the time of the recent anniversaries in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I began reading writers' accounts and treatments of the atomic bombings. I came across Hisashi Inoue's play "The Face of Jizo."

Inoue was born in Yamagata Prefecture. In some of his other works he dealt with the issue of Tohoku people who moved to Tokyo in desperate search of work.