[Ibuse's] documentary novel Black Rain describes in unemphatic detail the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, his own birthplace. The book, drawing extensively on eyewitness accounts, seems to belong to that Japanese fictional tradition … of sticking close to life, except of course, that the subject is so monstrous as to be scarcely recognisable as life, but rather to be the sort of lurid nightmare one expects from surrealism or science fiction.

If one could think of the event as not having happened, I doubt whether the novel would be worth reading except by those who like tales of horror without much imagination in the telling. As it is, imagination is the one thing which would be quite out of place and Mr Ibuse has most wisely put it to bed, leaving the appalling to speak for itself and contenting himself with the delicate business of arrangement and construction...