Natsuko Imamura was born in Hiroshima Prefecture. She has won the Osamu Dazai Prize, the Yukio Mishima Prize and the Akutagawa Prize for her fiction, which in addition to This is Amiko includes The Woman in the Purple Skirt. She lives in Osaka with her husband and daughter.
Imamura definitely has a rare talent for depicting people who are a little out of the ordinary -- Yoko Ogawa, author of 'The Memory Police'