Fusako Tsunoda (1914–2010) was a Japanese nonfiction writer born in Tokyo. After graduating from Fukuoka Jo Gakuin, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and began writing professionally in the 1960s. Focusing on modern Japanese history, she combined extensive interviews with close examination of historical records to portray individuals caught up in war, colonialism, and Japan’s relations with its neighbors. She received the Jiro Nitta Literary Prize for "Sekinin: Rabauru no Shogun Imamura Hitoshi" and the Shincho Gakugei Prize for "Minbi Ansatsu: Chosen Ocho Makki no Kokubo." In "Isshi, Taizai o Shasu: Rikugun Daijin Anami Korechika," Tsunoda reconstructs the life of Korechika Anami, Japan’s last wartime Army Minister, concentrating on the final four months before his suicide on August 15, 1945. The book traces how Anami confronted the conflict between an army demanding a final battle on Japanese soil and the political process that led Japan to accept the Potsdam Declaration and end the war.
