Natsuo Kirino, who was born in 1951 in Kanazawa, Japan, is a highly acclaimed author, well-known for her intelligent plot development and character portrayal. Kirino's father, an architect, moved the family frequently during her childhood, and she spent her youth in Sendai, Sapporo, and Tokyo, where she has resided since the age of fourteen. As a child, Kirino exhibited a great deal of curiosity and a strong inclination to immerse herself in her own world of imagination, which would later serve as the foundation for her successful writing career.
Before becoming a professional writer, Kirino pursued a law degree and worked in various fields, including scheduling and organizing films to be shown in a movie theater, and working as an editor and writer for a magazine publication. She got married at the age of twenty-four and began writing professionally after giving birth to her daughter at thirty. However, it was not until she was forty-one that Kirino made her major debut as a writer. Since then, she has written thirteen full-length novels and three volumes of collective short stories, which have been highly praised for their unique perspective on Japanese society after the collapse of the economic bubble.
Kirino's work has gained international recognition, with her smash hit novel OUT (Kodansha, 1997) becoming the first of her works to be translated into English and other languages. OUT was also nominated for the 2004 MWA Edgar Allan Poe Award in the Best Novel Category, making Kirino the first Japanese writer to be nominated for this major literary award. Her other works are now being translated and published around the world. Today, Kirino continues to write enthusiastically in a range of interesting genres, showcasing her talent and unique perspective as a writer.