Born in 1958 in Tokyo, HIROMI KAWAKAMI is one of Japan's most popular contemporary novelists, famous for her literary, off-beat fiction. She is the author of The Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo, which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.ALLISON MARKIN POWELL's translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders and she maintains the database, Japanese Literature in English, at http://www.japaneseliteratureinenglish.com.

Charming... beguiling and beautiful

Born in 1958 in Tokyo, HIROMI KAWAKAMI is one of Japan's most popular contemporary novelists, famous for her literary, off-beat fiction. She is the author of The Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo, which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.ALLISON MARKIN POWELL's translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders and she maintains the database, Japanese Literature in English, at http://www.japaneseliteratureinenglish.com.

Charming... beguiling and beautiful

Born in 1958 in Tokyo, HIROMI KAWAKAMI is one of Japan's most popular contemporary novelists, famous for her literary, off-beat fiction. She is the author of The Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo, which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.ALLISON MARKIN POWELL's translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders and she maintains the database, Japanese Literature in English, at http://www.japaneseliteratureinenglish.com.

Charming... beguiling and beautiful