In 1919, Tsutomu Minakami was born to Oi county of Fukui prefecture in Japan as a second son among five brothers. His father was a poor carpenter. The mother was a tenant farmer and helped their livelihood. There were five brothers. The mother became hysteric like every day for the poor life.
When there was no work, his father made the funeral tool and he became ill-humored. Tsutomi Minakami disliked such a home and became impossible to put up with it. He went into ascetic training in the temple as a servant boy at the age of nine.
That became the first turning point for Tsutomi Minakami. The temple taught him reading and writing and etiquette. It had big influence on subsequent his life.

Tsutomi Minakami wrote the novel for the first time at the fourth grade of old-system junior high school. The world was not permitted the work、however, it was an opportunity which he became a writer. He went over old Manchuria（China northeast) at the age of nineteen years old, and came back soon at the age of twenty years old. He began the contribution to the magazine at the time of twenty years old. When he was twenty-one years old, his work was accepted by Jun Takami, a Japanese famous writer. And the work was printed, and was published for the first time.
Then he entered the department of the national language and Chinese classics of Ritsumeikan University., earning money by working.
He leaves a university soon. And he had his mind set on coming to Tokyo. It was a Nihon Norin Sinbunsha- Japanese agriculture-and-forestry newspaper publishing company- that he worked first. He was devoted to the novel from the time. Although he was not reading others' novel till then, he said later that he practiced on writing well so as to imitate a favorite writer's style.

I will look into his career as a writer after that.
In 1947 after World War II, he started as a writer by "the song of the frying pan." The novel became a best seller.
“Although Tsutomu Minakami had stopped literary activity temporarily, he came back by "fog and the shadow" in 1959. He won the Nihon Tantei Sakka Club award -the Japanese detective writer club prize- with "the marine fang" in 1961. The Naoki Prize was won in "the temple of the wild goose." And he built the rich lyric "literature of Minakami.".
The 19th Kikuchikan Prize will be won in 1971. Original biographical literature "Biography of Koji Uno"
Seventh Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize will be won in 1973. Lively writer activity of "the tale of the woman of northern countries" etc.
The eleventh Jun'ichiro Tanizaki prize will be won in 1975.
「Ikkyu」 (Chuokoron-sha)
The fourth Yasunari Kawabata literary award will be won in 1977. "Teradomari" <the "Tenbo" May, 1976 issue>”
[Refer to Yomiuri Shimbun database]
Tsutomu Minakami told like this about the Naoki Prize winner. A noted editor called Mr. Hisako Okatomi made me write more than half write.
You may not meet the excellent editor who brings up a writer in a true meaning. However, while you write a work and challenge to the various fields, you may encounter somebody who helps you.
Tsutomu Minakami was not blessed with family environment but, we could say that he was blessed with encounter. Such a fortune will approach him because there was passion to his continued literature.