Masuda Mizuko was born in 1948 in Tokyo. She is a prolific writer who has received some of Japan's most prestigious literary awards, including the Noma New Writers Award, the Izumi Kyoka Prize, the Ministry of Education Fine Arts Award, and the Ito Sei Literary Prize.
Lynne Kutsukake is a writer, translator, and former Japanese studies librarian at the University of Toronto. She was a finalist for the Writer's Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Literary Prize.