BANANA YOSHIMOTO is the author of the international bestseller Kitchen. She has published ten books in English translation, including Goodbye Tsugumi, Moshi Moshi, and most recently, Dead-End Memories. Her work has been translated and published in more than thirty countries. In Italy, she won the Scanno Literary Prize in 1993, the Fendissime Literary Prize in 1996, the Maschera d'Argento Prize in 1999, and the Capri Award in 2011. She lives in Tokyo.

ASA YONEDA is the translator of Banana Yoshimoto's Dead-End Memories and Moshi Moshi, as well as Idol, Burning by Rin Usami and The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya.