Saou Ichikawa graduated from the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University. Her bestselling debut novel, Hunchback, won the Bungakukai Prize for New Writers and she is the first author with a physical disability to receive the Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan's top literary prizes. She has congenital myopathy and uses a ventilator and an electric wheelchair. She lives outside Tokyo.
Polly Barton is an award-winning translator and writer. She lives in Bristol, England.
