Saou Ichikawa (Author)
Saou Ichikawa (1979-) graduated from the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University. Her bestselling debut novel Hunchback won the 128th Bungakukai Prize for New Writers and the 169th Akutagawa Prize. She is the first author with a physical disability to receive the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's premier literary award. She has congenital myopathy, and uses a ventilator and an electric wheelchair

Polly Barton (Translator)
Polly Barton is a literary translator and writer. Her translations from Japanese to English include the bestselling Butter by Asako Yuzuki, The Woman Dies and Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, and There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. Her translation of Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Barton has also written the non-fiction books Fifty Sounds and Porn: An Oral History, and a novel, What am I, a Deer?