Mayumi Inaba was a writer and poet born in Aichi, Japan in 1950. Acclaimed for her subtle, perceptive portrayals of nature and of women’s inner lives, Inaba has won many awards, including the Women’s Literature Prize (1992), the Hirabayashi Taiko Prize (1995), the Yasunari Kawabata Prize for Miru (2008), the Tanizaki Jun’ichirō Prize for Hantō-e (To the Peninsula, 2011), and Japan’s Medal of Honor for her contributions to art (2014). She died of cancer at the age of 64.