Black Rain (novel)

is a novel by Japanese author Ibuse Masuji, first published in 1965 and translated into English by John Bester in 1966. It tells the story of "hibakusha" (Japanese atom bomb survivors) struggling with discrimination and social isolation due to radiation poisoning, as well as accounting for the events in Hiroshima around the time of the bombing. Probably one of the most well-known of Japanese novels among western readers, "Black Rain" deals with the bombing from a human perspective, mostly ignoring the political context and focusing on the issue that no matter why the bombs were used, they created endless amounts of suffering for decades to come.

Plot

The book contains stories from the everyday life in a village near the city of Hiroshima, where one of the survivors lives. She can't get married because of her illness, and in a desperate attempt to prove to the society that their niece has not been exposed to the dangerous radiation, her uncle and his wife start copying her diary from the time of the bombing. The reader follows the events as they are written down by the book's characters.