In peacetime, the personal looms to the foreground, and history recedes; in wartime, the personal either constitutes history, or is subsumed by it. Thus the literary romance may be especially suited to aftermath. Aptly then, Shirley Hazzard's "The Great Fire" begins in occupied Japan in 1947. Her protagonist, Aldred Leith, a decorated British major, has been sent by the army to report on the condition of Hiroshima. When pressed by his minder to explain the strategy behind dropping the atomic bomb, Leith submits: "By then, neither side was interested in sparing anyone, even themselves."
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