Natsuo Kirino

I don't know if foreigners will take to my novels or not. It may be that my books appeal only to a particular gender or age group rather than convey a more universal appeal.

I first thought about becoming a writer after the age of 30, which is rather late, I'd say. In my 20s, I wasn't especially good at anything, and I didn't have a lot of experiences. I was just a young woman without a good job.

For research, I like to go to the location of the places in the novels. The first thing that I do is involve my senses: I notice the smells; I open the trash cans and look at what people have thrown away.

I'm happy to be told that I am beautiful, but I don't gain anything from that.

A crime is like a crack in reality, and it is the author's role to explore those cracks. As a writer, I like to see how they impinge on people.

Out' was my real breakthrough, the novel that became a hit in Japan and sold a lot of books, so it was sort of an obvious choice for being the first book to be translated into English.

One of my books, 'Rain Falling on My Face,' earned me the 39th Edogawa Ranpo prize. It's a very prestigious literary prize in Japan, mostly for mysteries and thrillers.

I started writing juvenile novels around 1985. I never really thought of it as a career, but more as a way to make a living.

In Japan, full-time homemakers have no economic power of their own, and they socially lead a faceless, anonymous existence.

It's a very confusing experience living as a woman in Japan. If your husband is white-collar, the wife is blue. Even if you marry a person of status, the wife inevitably remains a rung below.