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. She has congenital myopathy and uses a ventilator and an electric wheelchair. Ichikawa lives outside Tokyo.

(Photo credit: Bungeishunju Ltd.)