Hiroyuki Agawa
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Hiroyuki Agawa (阿川 弘之 Agawa Hiroyuki?, born December 24, 1920) is a 20th century Japanese author.
Agawa was born in Hiroshima, Japan. In high school he was impressed and influenced by the famous Japanese author Shiga Naoya. He graduated from University of Tokyo in 1942 with a degree in Japanese literature. He was conscripted to serve in the Imperial Japanese Navy towards the end of World War II.
Agawa's major works include Nennen Saisai (Years upon Years, 1946), Haru no shiro (Spring Castle, 1952), Kumo no bohyo(Grave Marker in the Clouds, 1955), and Gunkan Nagato no shogai. In 1994 he was awarded the Noma Prize and in 1999 the Order of Culture (Bunka Kunsho). He wrote three biographical novels, Yamamoto Isoroku (1965), Yonai Mitsumasa (1978) and Inoue Seibi (1986). He has also worked as a columnist, contributing to periodicals.
Agawa leans most often toward the historical fiction and I Novel genres in his writings, often depicting some sort of WWII related theme or himself.
[edit] Works
- Ma no isan, 1952
- Haru no shiro, 1952 (won the Yomiuri Prize), Citadel in Spring (ISBN 0-87011-960-5, ISBN 4-7700-1460-0), translation by Lawrence Rogers, 1990
- Kumo no bokyo, 1955, Burial in the Clouds (ISBN 0-8048-3759-7), translation by Teruyo Shimizu, October 2006
- Yamamoto Isoroku, 1969, translation by John Bester, with some abridgment approved by Agawa, published as The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy (ISBN 0-87011-355-0), 1979
- Gento, 1966
- Kurai Hato, 1974
- Gunkan Nagato no shogai, 1975
- Yonai Mitsumasa, 1975
- Inoue Seibi, 1986
[edit] Sources
- Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002
- Burial in the Clouds, Tuttle Pub. info
- Atomic Bomb Literature: A Bibliography
- JSTOR, Citadel in Spring review
