Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse (Kodansha)

Masuji Ibuse’s Black Rain, translated from the Japanese title of Kuroi Ame by John Bester, reads as an anti-war novel. The story is set in and around Hiroshima. Although it is a work of fiction, Ibuse bases his tale on written testimonies from people’s diaries and also on the  interviews with victims of the atomic bombing. The main character, Shigematsu Shizuma, was a real person, and the journal he kept also exists outside of literature. The novel was also adapted into a movie directed by Shohei Imamura.

Several years have passed since the dropping of the atomic bomb on the city. A man named Shigematsu Shizuma who lives in a small village called Kobatake, located about a hundred miles to the east of Hiroshima, is worried about his niece and not finding a suitable marriage partner for her. Whenever they receive an enquiry, a persistent rumor would abound. People would say Yasuko worked in the kitchens of the Second Middle School Service Corps in Hiroshima and because of that rumor people believed she was a victim or radiation sickness and her uncle and aunt were conspiring to conceal that fact. 

Yasuko hands her uncle a diary she kept before, during, and after the bombing which he decides to copy to send to go-betweens for an omiai partner in an attempt to assure the other party that Yasuko did not serve in the Second Middle School Service Corps and was not even in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped and therefore was not a victim of radiation sickness. In her entry for August 9th, Yasuko had written about meeting up with her aunt and uncle who had come looking for her. Her uncle was hurt on his left cheek but her aunt seemed unharmed. It was when her uncle mentioned that her face looked like she was splashed with mud. This reminded Yasuko or the black rain that fell after the bomb had dropped. It is the part about the black rain they decide to leave out. 

Having read Yasuko’s diary, Shigematsu decides to keep a record of his own account and titled his document “A Journal of the Atomic Bombing”. The story is then told during the present, a few years after the bombing, in conjunction with the journal he kept, starting with his entry on August 6, the day the bomb was dropped and the world was changed forever. It was the beginning of the “Atomic Age”. He concludes his diary with the final entry on August 15, the day the Japanese people were to listen to an ‘important broadcast’ on the radio. It was the words of the Emperor of Japan who said, “The enemy is using a new and savage bomb to kill and maim innocent victims and inflict incalculable damage. Moreover, should hostilities continue any further, the final result would be to bring about not only the annihilation of the Japanese race, but the destruction of human civilization as a whole…” It was the speech of surrender officially ending th

Shizuma’s story and journal give the essence of what it was like to live through the atomic bombing and its aftermath. Ibuse doesn’t make any moral judgements against America’s use of the atomic bomb, nor does he blame the Japanese government for its militaristic expansion. What he provides here is the story of an ordinary family, of the ordinary people who continue to live with the memory and fear of succumbing to radiation sickness and how they go about living their lives as normally as possible.  This highly descriptive novel of the pain and suffering of the atomic bomb survivors is as relevant today as it was when it was first published. ~Ernie Hoyt