Yamada's real name is .

Yamada worked at the Sh?chiku film studios before beginning his career as a freelance scriptwriter and novelist.

His novel , published in 1987, won the Yamamoto Sh?gor? Prize for best human-interest novel. It was translated into English, in 2004, as Strangers.

Another Yamada novel, In Search of a Distant Voice, was translated and published in 2006 from a novel originally published in Japan in 1989.

A third Yamada novel, , was translated into English and published in 2008.