Masuji Ibuse's "Black Rain" is rightly considered a classic in Japanese literature, and perhaps "the" classic of literature about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
Shigematsu and his wife, Shigeko, arranged for a relative, Yasuko, to move to Hiroshima in order to avoid the draft for the war effort. Shigematsu worked for the government and could arrange things. After the bombing, persistent rumours about Yasuko suffering from radiation sickness made it impossible to find her a suitor for marriage. This problem prompted Shigematsu to write his own account of August the 6th, 1945, to show that Yasuko was exceptionally healthy. His logic was that he had been exposed to much more and his own life was relatively normal. He is a man of pride and dignity, as well as one with a keen sense of his own obligations to others around him.
Shigematsu's account is a catalogue of a plethora of horrors that people suffered during and immediately after the bombing. The injuries, the sights and Shigematsu's descriptions of them left this reader feeling less than pleasant. Shigematsu does not hold back on the details, nor does he attempt to overwell the reader with cheap shock tactics.
Shigematsu neither asks for nor expects the reader's sympathy. It is almost as if the bomb has to fit within his life and everyday routine. In the midst of the horror, for example, Shigematsu has business to attend to, and sees that he has done it to the extent possible. He comes across as a forthright and straight up person with a deep sense of trying to maintain some air of normality in the midst of terrible circumstances.
Ibuse based his novel on accounts written by survivors who were there and saw what happened. Ibuse neither justifies the bombing nor blames anyone for it, but focuses on the tragedy itself from a very human viewpoint. His relentless journey through the aftermath of the bomb is indeed a statement for life and dignity. Shigematsu and those around him somehow maintain a deep sense of value and dignity for human life and experience, which especially shine through in the days after the bombing itself.
This is not a pleasant book to read, but it is a great book and should be counted with the greats of literature from around the world. This book is a touching and penetrating journey into a Japanese family's experiences of the Hiroshima bombing. I absolutely recommend it to all.