Toshio Shimao was a Japanese novelist whose work delved deeply into the aftermath of war and the darker aspects of the human psyche. His writing was profoundly shaped by his wartime experiences as an officer in a kamikaze squadron stationed in the Amami Islands. Another significant theme explored the nature of madness in women, often intertwined with his wife's mental illness. Shimao's prose is marked by its raw honesty and its penetrating gaze into human suffering and fragility.
Sabine Mangold, geboren 1957, hat mehrere Jahre in Japan als Dozentin gearbeitet und zahlreiche literarische Werke aus dem Japanischen ins Deutsche übertragen. 2019 wurde sie mit dem Preis der Japan Foundation ausgezeichnet. Mangold lebt in Berlin.