is a Japanese novelist. She is a 1965 recipient of the

Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History Th ...

Early life

Tsumura was born in the capital city of Fukui,

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 ...

. Her mother died when she was nine years old. Two years later, she moved to

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. Her father, a silk weaver, died when she was sixteen. Between 1947 and 1948, at the age of nineteen, Tsumura ran her own dressmaking shop, employing three other dressmakers. Despite the success of her business, she closed the shop to attend Gakushuuin Women's Junior College, where she studied literature and edited the student literary magazine. She met her husband,

Akira Yoshimura was an award-winning Japanese writer. Internationally he is best known for his novels ''Shipwrecks'' and ''On Parole (novel), On Parole''. Life and work Yoshimura was the president of the Japanese writers' union and a International PEN, PEN ...

(1927–2006), while contributing to the literary magazine at his college. Tsumura graduated in 1953 and married soon after.

Career

Tsumura was nominated for the

Naoki Prize The Naoki Prize, officially , is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. It was created in 1935 by Kikuchi Kan, then editor of the ''Bungeishunjū'' magazine, and named in memory of novelist Naoki Sanjugo. Sponsored by the Society for ...

in 1959 for her short story, "Kagi" (Key), which she wrote for ''

Bungakukai is a Japanese monthly literary magazine published by Bungeishunjū as a oriented publication. History and profile The first version of ''Bungakukai'' was published from 1893 to 1898. The founders were the first generation romantic authors in ...

'' magazine. She was awarded the

in 1965 for her short story "Gangu" (Playthings), a story about an expectant mother who is disappointed by her husband's indifference to their pregnancy. In 1972, Tsumura's short story, "Saihate" (The Farthest Limit) won the Shincho Prize. It was based on Tsumura's personal experience after the collapse of her husband's business. Tsumura's 1983 biographical novel, ''Shirayuri no kishi'' (''Precipice of a White Lily'') is about Tomiko Yamakawa (1879–1909), a poet from Tsumura's native Fukui. Tsumura's novel, ''Ryuuseiu'' (''A Meteoric Shower'') won the Women's Literature Prize in 1990. It depicted the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

from the perspective of a 15-year-old girl. She is a member of the

Japan Art Academy is the highest-ranking official artistic organization in Japan. It is established as an extraordinary organ of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁, Bunkacho) in the thirty-first article of the law establishing the Ministry of ...

and was recognized as a

person of cultural merit is an official Japanese recognition and honour which is awarded annually to select people who have made outstanding cultural contributions. This distinction is intended to play a role as a part of a system of support measures for the promotion of ...

in 2016.

Bibliography

Type of literary work denoted in parentheses.

Translated works

Tsumura's 1969 short story ''"Yakoodokei"'' (夜光時計) was translated under the title "Luminous Watch." It is included in the anthology ''This Kind of Woman: Ten Stories by Japanese Women Writers'' by Elizabeth Hanson and Yukiko Tanaka. ''"Gangu''," the short story that won Tsumura the Akutagawa Prize, was translated by Kyoko Evanhoe and Robert N. Lawson for the ''Japan Quarterly'' in 1980 under the name "Playthings."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsumura, Setsuko 20th-century Japanese novelists 1928 births Japanese writers Akutagawa Prize winners Japanese women novelists Living people