Asako Yuzuki

In 2018, Yuzuki's novel Date Cleansing (デートクレンジング , Dēto kurenjingu) was published by Shōdensha. The following year she was nominated a fifth time for the Naoki Prize, for her book Magical Grandma (マジカルグランマ , Majikaru Guranma) .

Yuzuki's fourth Naoki Prize nomination came in 2017, when her novel BUTTER was nominated for the 157th Naoki Prize. BUTTER, a story about a reporter investigating a woman accused of luring men with her cooking and then killing them, was loosely based on an actual series of suspicious deaths of middle-aged men that led to murder convictions and a death sentence for Kanae Kijima. Yuzuki did not win the 157th Naoki Prize, as the award went to Shogo Sato.

Yuzuki published several books in 2013, including Ōhi no kikan (王妃の帰還 , Return of the Queen) , Ranchi no Akko-chan (ランチのアッコちゃん ) , and Itō-kun A to E (伊藤くん A to E ) . Ōhi no kikan, a novel about a pretty girl who enters a clique of less popular manga and idol otaku girls in middle school, was published by Jitsugyō no Nihonsha. It was later adapted into a 2018 NHK radio drama. Akka's Lunches (ランチのアッコちゃん , Ranchi no Akko-chan) , a book containing four connected short stories about the increasingly personal relationship between a young office worker and her older female boss, was published by Futabasha. It was later adapted into a 2015 NHK BS Premium television drama of the same name, starring Misako Renbutsu and Naho Toda.

In 2008 Yuzuki won the 88th All Yomimono Prize for New Writers for the story "Forget Me, Not Blue", about bullying in a Protestant all-girls school in Tokyo. The story was first published in the literary magazine All Yomimono and later collected with three other connected stories into the 2010 volume Shūten no ano ko (終点のあの子 ) , which became Yuzuki's first published book. In 2011 her novel Nageki no bijo (嘆きの美女 ) , about a woman who becomes frustrated with the prevalence of attractive people online and attempts to vandalize a beauty web site, was published by Asahi Shimbun and subsequently adapted into an NHK BS Premium television comedy series starring Akiko Yada.

Yuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1981. During her early school years she read books by foreign authors, including Beverly Cleary's Ramona series, Anne of Green Gables, and Judy Blume's young adult novels. While in junior high school Yuzuki had a serious illness, and during her recovery she read the novel Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, which convinced her to read more Japanese literature. She later attended Rikkyo University, where she studied French literature. After submitting a senior thesis on Honoré de Balzac and graduating from college Yuzuki worked for a confectionery maker, but later quit to focus on her writing.