Autor/-in: Hitomi Kanehara

Hitomi Kanehara is a young Japanese writer who left school at the age of eleven. After leaving home as a teenager, she emailed her stories to her writer father who helped her edit them. Her previous novel, Snakes and Earrings. won the top Japanese literary award, the Akutagawa Prize. One of the judges, celebrated writer Ryu Murakami, said her book was 'easily the top choice, receiving the highest marks of any work since I became a member of the selection panel'.