Keiichiro Hirano is an award-winning and bestselling novelist whose debut novel, The Eclipse, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1998, when he was a twenty-three-year-old university student. A cultural envoy to Paris appointed by Japan’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Hirano has lectured throughout Europe. Widely read in France, China, Korea, Taiwan, Italy, and Egypt, Hirano’s novels include the Watanabe Junichi Literary Prize–winning novel At the End of the Matinee—a runaway bestseller in Japan—and the critically acclaimed and Yomiuri Prize for Literature–winning A Man. His short fiction has appeared in the Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature. For more information, visit http://en.k-hirano.com and follow Hirano on Twitter at @hiranok_en.
