was a noted
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese author of fiction.
Shimamura was born in
Nagano Prefecture
is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...
, and in 1931 graduated from college with an English degree. His first book was published in 1941, and in 1943 his book 暁雲 became the first of his several candidates for the Akutagawa Prize. He founded a company in 1955 which went bankrupt in 1962, after which he took up writing full-time. Shimamura won the 1979
Yomiuri Prize
The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shimbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone.
Award categories
For the first two years, ...
for ''Myōkō no aki''.
English translations
* "Sumida River", in ''Seven stories of modern Japan'', Leith Morton ed., Wild Peony, 1991. .
References
Sources
* Japanese Wikipedia article
Jlit entry
Japanese writers
1912 births
1981 deaths
Yomiuri Prize winners
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