Kikuko Tsumura

Kikuko Tsumura (born 1978 in Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese fiction writer known for her stories exploring precarious work and young workers' lives. She won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2009 for Potosu raimu no fune (The Lime Pothos Boat), along with other major awards including the Noma Literary New Face Prize, Dazai Osamu Prize, and Kawabata Yasunari Prize. Her novel Kono yo ni tayasui shigoto wa nai (There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job) earned the MEXT New Artist Award in 2016 and was her first translated into English.