Setsuko Tsumura

is a Japanese novelist. She is a 1965 recipient of the Akutagawa Prize.

Early life Tsumura was born in the capital city of Fukui, Japan. Her mother died when she was nine years old. Two years later, she moved to Tokyo. Her father, a silk weaver, died when she was sixteen. Between 1947 and 1948, at the age of nineteen, Tsumura ran her own dressmaking shop, employing three other dressmakers. Despite the success of her business, she closed the shop to attend Gakushuuin Women's Junior College, where she studied literature and edited the student literary magazine. She met her husband, Akira Yoshimura (1927–2006), while contributing to the literary magazine at his college. Tsumura graduated in 1953 and married soon after.