Background
Agawa was born in Hiroshima, Japan.
阿川 弘之
Agawa was born in Hiroshima, Japan.
University of Tokyo.
He was known for his fiction centered on World World War II, as well as his biographies and essays. As a high school student Agawa was influenced by the Japanese author Naoya Shiga. He entered the Tokyo Imperial University to study Japanese literature.
Upon graduation in 1942, Agawa was conscripted to serve in the Imperial Japanese Navy, where he worked as an intelligence officer breaking Chinese military codes until the end of the war.
lieutenant follows the style of Naoya Shiga, who is said to have praised the work. August 6 as Agawa notes in a postscript, combines the stories of friends and acquaintances who experienced the bombing into the testimony of one family.
(He later revisited the same theme of his experiences as a student soldier in Kurai hato (Dark waves, 1974)). Agawa"s four major biographical novels are Yamamoto Isoroku (山本五十六, 1965), Yonai Mitsumasa (米内光政, 1978), Inoue Seibi (井上成美, 1986), and Shiga Naoya (志賀直哉, 1994).
His other major works include Kumo no bohyo (Grave markers in the clouds, 1955), and Gunkan Nagato no shogai (The life of the warship Nagato, 1975).
He is the father of Sawako Agawa, popular author and television personality, and Naoyuki Agawa, professor of law at Keio University. 1952 Yomiuri Prize - Citadel in Spring, (Haru no shiro,「春の城」).