Leslie Sussan
Filed under: Authors
I was born and raised in Manhattan. My father was a television producer, and we followed his work to California, living for three years in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. None of us felt at home in the sunny world of rich celebrities. In short order, my father fell out of favor at the studios. Our family imploded in finger-pointing and then retreated back to New York City.
I left for college at Bryn Mawr at 16 with no intention of looking back. I plunged into activism, it being the time of civil rights and Vietnam. I helped found the Gray Panthers, went on peace marches to the strange land of power in Washington, D.C., and considered it a betrayal that my father, who had seen Hiroshima, did not join me in anti-war protests.
After graduation, I found myself in that strange land as a law student at Georgetown. I wanted to understand the sources of that power and try to harness them for those who suffered. I figured I would be in the D.C. area for three years and then set out to save the world. It is now (2022) 47 years later; I am still in the D.C. area, I have not saved the world, but I am still committed to supporting the rule of law and empowering the marginalized.
When my father died in 1985, of a cancer he believed triggered by his long-ago time in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his last wish was that his ashes be buried at Ground Zero. Trying to fulfill this wish drew me deeply into his experience. I lived in Hiroshima for a year in 1987-88, met survivors whom he had filmed, and in the process felt I finally began to understand my own father.
Over my long career as an attorney before and after my time in Japan, I represented migrant farmworkers and abused children, litigated for the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and served for fourteen years as an administrative appellate judge for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services before retiring in January 2022. I look forward to new adventures.
I currently live in Silver Spring, Maryland, with my daughter Kendra and our cat, Neko-chan, and attend Bethesda Friends Meeting in Maryland.
Website: https://hiroshima-choosinglife.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Choosing-Life-Hiroshima-107080617737544/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/okaasanneko/?hl=en
Winning Entry: Choosing Life: My Father’s Journey in Film from Hollywood to Hiroshima
Contest Won: North Street Book Prize 2021, First Prize
