Hiromi Kawakami

Hiromi Kawakami was born in Tokyo in 1958. She worked as a teacher until the publication of her first book of short stories, Kamisama, for which she received the Pascal Prize. Since then, she has become one of Japan's most widely read and awarded writers. In 1996, she won the Akutagawa Prize for Hebi o Fumu, and in 2000, the Ito Sei Prize and the Woman Writers' Prize for Abandonarse a la pasión (Surrender to Passion). A year later, she won the prestigious Tanizaki Prize for El cielo es azul,