Shūgorō Yamamoto
Japanese writer
Satomu Shimizu (清水 三十六, Shimizu Satomu; June 22, 1903 – February 14, 1967), better known by the pen name of Shūgorō Yamamoto (山本 周五郎, Yamamoto Shūgorō), was a Japanese novelist and short-story writer active during the Shōwa period of Japan. He was noted for his popular literature, and is known to have published works under at least fourteen different pen names.
Early life
Yamamoto was born in what is now Otsuki city in Yamanashi prefecture, to a family in impoverished circumstances. Lack of money forced him to drop out of secondary school, but he continued his education part-time, while living as a boarder above a used bookstore. His pen-name came from the name of the store where he lived.
Literary career
Yamamoto's literary debut was with a short story called Sumadera fukin, and a stage drama in three acts, called Horinji iki, which were both published in 1926. His early works were aimed primarily at children. In 1932, he turned to popular stories for adults with Dadara Dambei, which received little serious notice from the literary world, so he continued to write popular detective stories and adventure stories for juvenile audiences. These included a series of short stories with samurai themes from 1940–1945, and stories on heroic historical women from 1942–1945, both themes being preeminently suitable for wartime Japan.
His preference for historically themed writings carried over into the postwar era, with Momi no ki wa nokotta (The Fir Trees Remain) and the Flower Mat.
The public source identifies “Shūgorō Yamamoto” as japanese writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Shūgorō, Yamamoto and Japanese.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7506266. VIAF identifies the subject as 24758285. The Library of Congress control number is n82099050. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1967, 1926 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shūgorō Yamamoto” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.