90 Seconds to Midnight tells the gripping and thought-provoking story of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow, a 13-year-old girl living in Hiroshima in 1945, when the city was annihilated by an atomic bomb. Struggling with grief and anger, Thurlow set out to warn the world about the horrors of a nuclear attack in a crusade that has lasted seven decades.
In 2015, Thurlow sparked a rallying cry for activists when she proclaimed at the United Nations, “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.” With that, she shifted the global discussion from nuclear deterrence to humanitarian consequences, the key in crafting the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Regarded as the conscience of the antinuclear movement, Thurlow accepted the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. With the fate of humanity at stake and with the resolve of her samurai ancestors, Thurlow challenged leaders of the nuclear-armed states. On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect, banning nuclear weapons under international law.
Critical historical events need a personal narrative, and Thurlow is such a storyteller for Hiroshima. 90 Seconds to Midnight recounts Thurlow’s ascent from the netherworld where she saw, heard, and smelled death and her relentless efforts to protect the world from an unspeakable fate. Knowing she would have to live with those nightmares, Thurlow turned them into a force to impel people across the globe to learn from Hiroshima, to admit that yes, it could happen again—and then to take action.
About the author
Jacobs, MD ’72, is the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine (Emerita) at Stanford University, where she engaged in cancer research, patient care and teaching. Mid-career, she began studying creative writing at Stanford and has published three biographies and a script, including Jonas Salk: A Life (Oxford University Press 2015), the first full account of one of America’s most beloved and decorated scientific heroes; and Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease (Stanford General Press 2010), the story of an esteemed and controversial physician-scientist whose remarkable discoveries and vehement drive to cure cancer changed the course of cancer therapy. 90 Seconds to Midnight is her third story of a passionate individual whose lifelong endeavors helped safeguard mankind.
She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Ragdale Foundation, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.