portrayed alongside themes of the struggle between war and peace. , author of believes that the characters Katsuko and Natsue coopt but change the stereotypical "Hiroshima Maiden" story, as typified in Black Rain, as although courageous, Katsuko and Natsue are severely scarred both physically and mentally. Translations A volunteer pacifist organization, Project Gen, formed in Tokyo in 1976 to produce English translations. Leonard Rifas' EduComics published it, beginning in 1980, as Gen of Hiroshima, making it the "first full-length translation of a manga from Japanese into English to be published in the West". It was unpopular, and the series was cancelled after two volumes. The group Rondo Gen published an Esperanto translation as Nudpieda Gen (Barefoot Gen) in 1982. The chief translator was Izumi Yukio. The German Rowohlt Verlag published only the first volume in 1982 under their mass-market label "rororo". Carlsen Comics tried it again in 2004 but cancelled the publication after four volumes. Both publishers took the name Barfuß durch Hiroshima (Barefoot through Hiroshima). The first volume was published in Norwegian in 1986 by GEVION norsk forlag A/S. The Norwegian title is Gen, Gutten fra Hiroshima (Gen, the Boy from Hiroshima). A similar edition in Swedish (Gen – Pojken från Hiroshima) was published in 1985 by Alvglans förlag, which may have been the earliest published manga in Swedish. The first volume was published in Finnish in 1985 by Jalava, becoming the first Japanese comic to be published in Finland, but publishing was likewise abandoned. The Finnish title is Hiroshiman poika ("The Son of Hiroshima"), and Finnish translation was done by Kaija-Leena Ogihara. In 2006 Jalava republished the first volume (with its original translation) and continued with publication of second volume. All 10 volumes were published in Poland by Waneko in 2004–2011 under the title Hiroszima 1945: Bosonogi Gen. An Arabic translation was published in Egypt by Maher El-Sherbini, a professor in the department of Japanese Language and Japanese literature at Cairo University. He began the project in 1992 when he was an exchange student at the Hiroshima University Graduate School of Letters, where he had completed his master's and doctorate's degrees. The first volume was released in January 2015 and since then all 10 volumes have been translated. New Society Publishers produced a second English-language run of the series in graphic novel format (as Barefoot Gen: The Cartoon Story of Hiroshima) starting in 1988. New English edition A