About the author:
Stephen Kelen, an Australian by choice, was born in Budapest and educated there and at Prague Uy. His short stories, poems and articles have been published since he was venteen. He is also a playwright and the author of veral novels. He wrote first in Hungarian, then in Czed now writes in English. He is a member of veral professional associations, among them the Australian Journalists Association, Australian Society of Authors, and the iional PEN Sydney ter of which he resident from 1975 to 1985. In 1986 he was awarded the OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) for his rvice to literature.
Born in Hungary in 1912, Stephen Kelen has been an Australian for more than 40 years, active as an author, playwright, journalist and sportsman. During the Sed World War, he volunteered and rved in the Australian Army in New Guihe Halmaheras, North Borneo and as a member of the occupation forces in Japan. His articles on Hiroshima were published by leading neers and magazines in Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon and England. One of his novels, Freedom is a Rainbow, rize winner in a United Nations test in New York. After the war, he worked as aor and writer. His radio dramas aures have been broadcast by the ABC, the BBd radio stations in Switzerland, Germany, Holland and France.
In 1946 Stephen Kelen, osted to Japan as a member of the British oh Occupation Forces. In Japaransferred from Intelligeo bee a feature writer on the British oh Occupation News. He spent more than three yeas in the survivors— to a priest who had tehe wounded in the immediate aftermath of the explosion; to a bookller who had capitalized upon misfortune and sold twisted mementos of the blast; to a clerk who arm had been expod to the flash and was uless but who now made his living lling fire insurance amidst burnt-out buildings; to the child, widely known as the “flash bang baby”, who had been born within an hour of the explosion.
But perhaps most importantly, Kelen attehe first Hiroshima Peace Festival in 1946, a festival that has since bee an annual event. He was struck by the abnce of animosity, the upsurge of rejoig, the spontaneous acceptance of himlf, not as a reprentative of the enemy, but as a fellow human being. Today, more than 40 years later, Stephen Kelen remembers Hiroshima in moving and poignaail. His story is apanied by the unique colle of photographs he took that vividly recapture the havoc, the slow rebuilding of the city, and the subquent peace festivals.
About the author:
Stephen Kelen, an Australian by choice, was born in Budapest and educated there and at Prague Uy. His short stories, poems and articles have been published since he was venteen. He is also a playwright and the author of veral novels. He wrote first in Hungarian, then in Czed now writes in English. He is a member of veral professional associations, among them the Australian Journalists Association, Australian Society of Authors, and the iional PEN Sydney ter of which he resident from 1975 to 1985. In 1986 he was awarded the OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) for his rvice to literature.