Lady Joker, Volume 1

About the Author

Kaoru Takamura was born in Osaka in 1953 and is the author of thirteen novels. Her debut, Grab the Money and Run, won the 1990 Japan Mystery and Suspense Grand Prize, and since then her work has been recognized with many of Japan's most prestigious awards for literary fiction as well as for crime fiction- the Naoki Prize, the Noma Literary Award, the Yomiuri Prize, the Shinran Prize, the Jiro Osaragi Prize, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and the Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize. Lady Joker, her first novel to be translated into English, received the Mainichi Arts Award and has been adapted into both a film and a television series. Allison Markin Powellis a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has been awarded grants from English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize forThe Ten Loves of Nishinoby Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue ofWords Without Borders, and she maintains the databaseJapanese Literature in English. Marie Iidahas served as an interpreter for theNew York Timesbestselling author Marie Kondo's Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series,Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.Her nonfiction translations have appeared inNang,MoMA Post,Eurekaand over half a dozen monographs on contemporary Japanese artists and architects, including Yayoi Kusama, Toyo Ito, and Kenya Hara for Rizzoli New York. Marie currently writes a monthly column forGentosha Plusabout communicating in English as a native Japanese speaker.