Along with left-wing writers Tatsuo Hori and Tsurujirō Kubokawa, Nakano ran the progressive literary magazine Roba ("Donkey").

Nakano urged Sata to write her first short story, Kyarameru kōjō kara ("From the Caramel Factory"), which was based on her own experiences and published in 1928.

[9][8] While praised by writers like Yasunari Kawabata for drawing on modernist literary techniques, Sata became increasing involved in issues related to workers and the labor movement.

These included Kyosei kikoku ("Compulsory Extradition"), about the rights of migrant Korean workers, and Tears of a Factory Girl in the Union Leadership (Kanbu joko no namida),[3] both published in 1931.

This experience is described in part in her 1936–38 novel Crimson (Kurenai),[3] a fictionalised account of her marriage and the struggles of being a mother, wife and professional writer.

[1] By 1940, Sata, like Fumiko Hayashi, eventually collaborated with the authorities, publishing both diaries of her travels in Korea and Manchuria and "home front" stories in support of the Japanese war effort, for which she later faced criticism by former associates.

Also in 1946, she was one of the founding members of the Women's Democratic Club, along socialist politician Shizue Katō and intellectuals like Setsuko Hani and Yuriko Miyamoto.

[15] Sata was awarded the Noma Literary Prize in 1972 for her book Juei ("The Shade of Trees"), which deals with the relationships between Chinese and Japanese people in Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and the (fictionalised) biography of painter Kiyoshi Ikeno (1930–1960), which had already served as basis for her 1961 short story The Colorless Paintings.