The Ash Garden
Dennis Bock
 The narrative alternates between three characters (Emiko, Anton and Sophie) and takes place around the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, though the back story of each character is told. Emiko was a small girl living in Hiroshima with her parents, younger brother, and grandfather during WWII. Following the atomic bombing, with her parents dead, Emiko and her brother recover in a hospital and her grandfather cares for patients. Though her brother dies, Emiko travels to the United States as part of a group of girls receiving reconstructive surgery. On the way, the American media takes an interest in the girls and she appears on an episode of This Is Your Life thanking the American audience for bringing her to the US. She later becomes a documentary filmmaker and, in 1995, approaches Anton Böll to be part of a new project. Anton was a scientist in Nazi Germany who, following a disagreement regarding the direction of its nuclear program, is recruited by the US and flees via France, Spain, and Portugal. He becomes a part of the Manhattan Project, witnesses the tests, and travels to Hiroshima recording the aftermath. Anton regrets the consequences of the atomic bombs, attends the Pugwash Conference, but maintains his belief that it was necessary to end the war and prevented more deaths. He marries Sophie and becomes a professor at Columbia University in New York. With Sophie, he retires to a small town outside of Toronto. As WWII was beginning, Sophie's Jewish parents sent her away from Austria. She was on board of the MS St. Louis when it was turned away from Cuba and sent to the United Kingdom. She was living in a refugee camp in Canada when she met Anton. She was diagnosed with lupus and takes up gardening, planning elaborate landscapes every year. In 1995, after refusing further medical treatments, and with Anton by her side, she succumbs to the disease. After Sophie's funeral Anton reveals to Emiko the extent to which he had been involved in Emiko's life. He first met her while volunteering at the hospital in which her grandfather was working. Feeling he had to make amends in some way, he ensured that Emiko was on the list of girls to get reconstructive surgery, and secretly filmed her at memorial events. He had been waiting for her to find him.