was a noted
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese author of fiction.
Shimamura was born in
Nagano Prefecture
is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...
, 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 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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