Natsuo Kirino made a spectacular fiction debut on these shores with the publication of Edgar Award-nominated Out (“Daring and disturbing . . . Prepared to push the limits of this world . . . Remarkable”—Los Angeles Times). Unanimously lauded for her unique, psychologically complex, darkly compelling vision and voice, she garnered a multitude of enthusiastic fans eager for more.

In her riveting new novel Grotesque, Kirino once again depicts a barely known Japan. This is the story of three Japanese women and the interconnectedness of beauty and cruelty, sex and violence, ugliness and ambition in their lives.

Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue have been brutally murdered, their deaths leaving a wake of unanswered questions about who they were, who their murderer is, and how their lives came to this end. As their stories unfurl in an ingeniously layered narrative, coolly mediated by Yuriko’s older sister, we are taken back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school—where a strict social hierarchy decided their fates—and follow them through the years as they struggle against rigid societal conventions.

Shedding light on the most hidden precincts of Japanese society today, Grotesque is both a psychological investigation into the female psyche and a classic work of noir fiction. It is a stunning novel, a book that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s electrifying gifts.</p>

桐野夏生，1951年生于日本石川县金泽市。日本推理小说界最受推崇的女性作家，有“日本写实小说女王”之称。其作品风格犀利、冷硬，极具社会批判色彩，着重于对人性善恶的深刻揭示。

桐野夏生曾凭代表作《OUT》获得国际推理小说界最具盛名的“爱伦•坡奖”最佳小说部门提名，虽未获奖，但已创下日本推理作家的新纪录，国际声誉扶摇直上。

主要获奖记录：

1993年凭《濡湿面颊的雨》获得第39届江户川乱步奖。

1998年凭《OUT》获得第51届日本推理作家协会奖。

1999年凭《柔嫩的脸颊》获得第121届直木奖

2003年凭《异常》获得第31届泉镜花文学奖

2004年凭《残虐记》获得第17届柴田炼三郎奖