Shigeru Tonomura was a Japanese author of

I novel The I-novel (, , ) is a literary genre in Japanese literature used to describe a type of confessional literature where the events in the story correspond to events in the author's life. This genre was founded based on the Japanese reception of n ...

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

of his real name was 外村茂, but it was same reading as the pen name. Tonomura was born into a conservative merchant's family in

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...

and raised by devout parents who believed in

Pure Land Buddhism Pure Land Buddhism (; ja, 浄土仏教, translit=Jōdo bukkyō; , also referred to as Amidism in English,) is a broad branch of Mahayana Buddhism focused on achieving rebirth in a Buddha's Buddha-field or Pure Land. It is one of the most wid ...

. After graduation from the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

with a degree in economics, he took over the family business as a wholesale cotton merchant. His house in Gokashōkondō-chō,

Higashiōmi Yōkaichi Kite Festival is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 113,229 in 45771 households and a population density of 290 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Higashiōmi ...

, is now a museum that reflects

Ōmi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, Ōmi was ranked as one of the 13 "great countrie ...

merchant life. In 1933 Tonomura handed over control of the business to his brother and began to write seriously. He received the 1956

Noma Literary Prize The Noma Literary Prize (''Noma Bungei Shō'') was established in 1941 by the Noma Service Association (''Noma Hōkō Kai'') in accordance with the last wishes of Seiji Noma (1878–1938), founder and first president of the Kodansha publishing co ...

for ''Ikada'' (筏) and the 1960

Yomiuri Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shinbun 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, a ...

for ''Miotsukushi'' (澪標). Tonomura was good friends with

Motojirō Kajii was a Japanese writer in the early Shōwa period known for his poetic short stories. Kajii's works included , . and . His poetic works were praised by fellow writers including Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Today his works are admired for ...

References

PhotoGuide: Gokasho Omi Merchant Homes 五個荘近江商人屋敷
* Yoshikazu Kataoka, ''Introduction to Contemporary Japanese Literature: 1956-1970'', Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, University of Tokyo Press, 1972, pages 252-254. * Donald Keene, ''Dawn to the West: Japanese literature of the modern era, fiction'', Volume 1, Columbia University Press, 2nd edition, 1998, page 532. . * ''Dharma world'', Kosei Pub. Co., volume 14-15, 1987. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tonomura, Shigeru 1902 births 1961 deaths Japanese writers Yomiuri Prize winners Writers from Shiga Prefecture