Black Rain
Kodansha USA · first published 1966 · 304 pages
A man in a village near Hiroshima copies out his diary of the days after the bombing, hoping to help his niece marry.
Plain and documentary in manner, it builds its force from detail, routine, and restraint.
For a night of quiet remembering.
About this book
Some years after the war, Shizuma Shigematsu lives in a country village with his wife and their niece, Yasuko. Rumors that Yasuko was caught in the radioactive rain keep spoiling her marriage prospects, so Shigematsu sets out to copy his diary of August 1945 to show where she really was that day. As he writes, the city and its people return in close, ordinary detail. What stays is the steadiness of witness carried quietly through daily life.