Akira Yoshimura

Akira Yoshimura (吉村 昭) was an award-winning Japanese writer. Internationally he is best known for his novels Shipwrecks and On Parole.

Life and work
Yoshimura was the president of the Japanese writers' union and a PEN member. He published over 20 novels, of which On Parole and Shipwrecks are internationally known and have been translated into several languages. In 1984 he received the Yomiuri Prize for his novel Hagoku (破獄, On Parole) based on the true story of Yoshie Shiratori.

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Yoshimura's nonfiction chronicle of three previous tsunamis on the coast of Sanriku, Sanriku Kaigan Otsunami received an influx of orders, requiring a reprint of 150,000 copies. Yoshimura's wife and author in her own right, Setsuko Tsumura donated the royalties from the book to the village of Tanohata, which was heavily impacted by the tsunami. Tanohata was a favorite place of Yoshimura's to visit and inspired him to begin research on the historical tsunamis of the area.

Yoshimura was married to the writer Setsuko Tsumura.

Books (selection)

 * 1966 Senkan Musashi (戦艦武蔵)
 * English edition: Battleship Musashi: The Making and Sinking of the Worlds Biggest Battleship (Kodansha USA, 1999)


 * 1967 Mizu no sōretsu (水の葬列)
 * 1970 Umi no kabe sanriku kaigan ōtsunami (海の壁 三陸沿岸大津波)
 * 1978 Tōi hi no sensō (遠い日の戦争)
 * English edition: One Man’s Justice (Canongate, 2004), ISBN 978-1-84195-479-0


 * 1979 Pōtsumasu no hata (ポーツマスの旗) (on the 1905 Japan-Russia Treaty of Portsmouth negotiation)
 * French edition: Les Drapeaux de Portsmouth (Éditions Philippe Picquier, 1990)


 * 1982 Hasen (破船)
 * English edition: Shipwrecks (破船, Hasen) (Harvest Books, 1996), ISBN 0-15-600835-1


 * 1983 Hagoku (破獄)
 * 1988 Karishakuhō (仮釈放)
 * English edition: On Parole (Harvest Books, 2000), ISBN 978-0-15-601147-1, loosely adapted into a movie as The Eel


 * 1989 Yami ni hirameku (闇にひらめく)
 * 1998 Namamugi jiken (生麦事件)
 * 1999 Amerika Hikozō (アメリカ彦蔵) (on Joseph Heco)
 * English edition: Storm Rider (Harcourt, 2004)

Awards and honors

 * 1966: Dazai Osamu Prize
 * 1973: Kikuchi Kan Prize
 * 1985: 36th Yomiuri Prize
 * 1997: Japan Art Academy member
 * 2006: Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class