Yoko Ogawa

Yōko Ogawa (born 1962 in Okayama, Japan) is a Japanese novelist, short story writer and essayist. A graduate of Waseda University, she won the Kaien Newcomer Prize for her debut and the Akutagawa Prize in 1991 for "Pregnancy Diary".

Her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003) became a bestseller and won the Yomiuri Prize and the first Japan Booksellers' Award, and later books include The Memory Police, The Diving Pool, Hotel Iris and Mina's Matchbox. Much of her work has been translated into English by Stephen Snyder. She lives in Ashiya, Hyōgo.