Kazuki Sakuraba

Kazuki Sakuraba is a Japanese author of novels and light novels, and a Naoki Prize winner. Born in 1971, she began her career writing novelizations, but the bestselling mystery series Gosick brought her work with several light novel publishers, and her novel A Lollypop or a Bullet placed third in the 2006 Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! ranking. The novel proved so popular it was republished by Kadokawa as a mainstream novel. In recent years, she has published several novels through other mainstream publishers as well, making her one of the few light novelists to make that leap. In 2007, her novel Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas was nominated for the Naoki Prize. In 2008, she was nominated for a second time, for Watashi no Otoko (My Man), and won the prize.