Mitsuyo Kakuta was born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1967 and graduated from Waseda University, where she majored in creative writing. She has written more than forty books (novels, short story collections, and essay collections) and is considered one of Japan's most popular writers. She has won seven major literary awards, including the Chuo Koron Literary Prize for The Eighth Day, and the Naoki Prize for Woman on the Other Shore. Her short stories have appeared in Asia Literary Review and Japanese Literature Today.