Fumio Niwa (丹羽 文雄, Niwa Fumio, November 22, 1904 Japan, died April 20, 2005 in Musashino, Tokyo) was a Japanese novelist with a long list of works, the most famous in the West being his novel The Buddha Tree (Japanese Bodaiju, "The Linden", or "The Bodhi Tree", 1956).

[3] Niwa was born in Mie Prefecture, the eldest son of a priest in the Pure Land sect of Buddhism.

After his graduation from Waseda University, he reluctantly entered the hereditary priesthood there but quit two years later, at the age of 29, in order to become a writer, walking out of the temple grounds on 10 April 1932 and heading back to Tokyo.

[4][5] He worked as a war correspondent in China and New Guinea, accompanied Rear Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's Eighth Fleet and was on board the flagship Chōkai during the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August 1942.

Niwa encouraged fellow members to play golf, organised health insurance, and bought land for a writers' cemetery.