Seishu Hase has published many bestselling novels in his native Japan, a number of which have been adapted for film. He has been nominated six times for the Naoki Prize, awarded biannually to the best work of popular fiction, and finally won it for The Boy and the Dog, which has sold a quarter of a million copies in Japan and is being adapted for film and published around the world.

Alison Watts is the translator of the novels Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, Spark by Naoki Matayoshi, and The Aosawa Murders and Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda. She is a longtime resident of Japan.