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. He returned to Hiroshima, where his parents had experienced the atomic bomb, in March 1946.

After WWII Agawa wrote his first short story Nennen Saisai (Years upon Years, 1946), which was a classical I Novel, or autobiographical novel, recounting the reunion with his parents. It 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. Occupation censorship at the time was strict, but the story passed because, the author later observed, "it made no reference to the problems of after-effect and continued no overt criticism of the U.S." Agawa came to popular and critical attention with his Citadel in Spring (, 1952), which was awarded the Yomiuri Prize. (He later revisited the same theme of his experiences as a student soldier in Kurai hato (Dark waves, 1974)). Ma no isan (Devil's Heritage, 1953), a documentary novel, is an account of the bombing of Hirosima through the eyes of a young Tokyo reporter, handling, among other topics, the death of his Hiroshima nephew and survivors' reactions to the Atomic bomb Casualty Commission, the U.S. agency that conducted research on atomic victims.

Agawa's four major biographical novels are Yamamoto Isoroku (?????, 1965), Yonai Mitsumasa (????, 1978), Inoue Seibi (????, 1986), and Shiga Naoya (????, 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).

Agawa was awarded the Order of Culture (Bunka Kunsho) in 1999.

He is the father of Sawako Agawa, popular author and TV personality.

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002
• Burial in the Clouds, Tuttle Pub. info
• Atomic Bomb Literature: A Bibliography
• JSTOR, Citadel in Spring review

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