Natsuo Kirino is a leading figure in Japanese crime fiction. A prolific writer, she is most famous for her 1998 novel Out, which received the Grand Prix for Crime Fiction, Japan's top mystery award, and was a finalist (in translation) for the 2004 Edgar Best Novel Award.

Rebecca Copeland is a professor of Japanese literature at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, where her research and teaching focuses on women, gender and translation studies. She also translated Kirino's 2003 novel Grotesque.