Under the Eye of the Big Bird

Hiromi Kawakami (川上 弘美, Kawakami Hiromi, born 1958) is a Japanese writer known for her off-beat fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. She has won numerous Japanese literary awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, the Yomiuri Prize, and the Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature. Her work has been adapted for film, and has been translated into more than 15 languages.

Asa Yoneda is a Japanese translator, her work includes translations from Japanese of women and men from the contemporary to the early 20th century, and has been nominated for the PEN Translation Prize and the Otherwise Prize, among others. She teaches literary translation at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Born in Osaka, she has lived in Tokyo, Southern California, and the south of England, most recently Bristol. She teaches literary translation at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and serves as a judge for the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize for Japanese Literature.

Her English language translation of Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami is shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.