After Apocalypse: Four Japanese Plays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Goodman, David G, ed. Columbia University Press: New York, 1986.

The aftermath of the atom bomb involved many stages of dealing with the pain. Each play is a progression in the healing progress, and a different point of view. The "Island", the "Elephant", and the "Rat" all use devices such as the story of the sin of Kiyomori, a man punished for abusively using the power of the sun, and other metaphors for the suffering and fever from the curse of the bomb. A horror at the deformed humans destroyed by the technology of America, the concepts of burning and smelling corpses, road to death invalid's pain and the bomb disease are all used by the authors to show a destructive human race with the life-affirming will to survive. "Head of Mary" contrasts Christian religion with the hell of the bomb, discusses the intertwining of death, freedom, and suicide.

The plays are difficult to grasp without experiencing, as many of the underlying concepts were subtle. The plays were intended for those with experience and knowledge of the postwar situation. The authors have all had some education or experience with the issues at hand, and brief introductions are helpful to understanding this translation of Japanese plays. The four different viewpoints are good in that they show different variations on the similar theme of suffering. The bluntness of the description of the gross images lends to a shocking effect on the reader, an effect demanded of any war reaction piece. The everyday changes and trials helped to estimate the scope and far-reaching effects of the war on the Japanese people.

-Jacqui Phillips