**Fuminori Nakamura *was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. He has won numerous prizes for his writing, including Japan's prestigious Ōe Prize; the David L. Goodis Award for Noir Fiction; and the Akutagawa Prize. The Thief,his first novel to be translated into English, was...

**Fuminori Nakamura *was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. He has won numerous prizes for his writing, including Japan's prestigious Ōe Prize; the David L. Goodis Award for Noir Fiction; and the Akutagawa Prize. The Thief,his first novel to be translated into English, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His other novels include Cult X *, The Gun, The Kingdom, Evil and the Mask, The Boy in the Earth, My Annihilation, * and Last Winter, We Parted.***Sam Bett ** is a fiction writer and Japanese translator. His translation work has won the Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize and been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.