Riu Kushiki 櫛木 理宇

Riu Kushiki (1972–) was born in Niigata Prefecture. In 2012 her Hōnteddo kyanpasu (Haunted Campus) won the Japan Horror Story Grand Prize Readers’ Award. Her vividly drawn characters and accessible style garnered highly favorable ratings in pre-publication reviews from the public. That same year, Aka to shiro (Red and White) received the Shōsetsu Subaru New Writers’ Award, bringing her double honors. Her subsequent works have included Hiraishin no natsu (Lightning Rod Summer), about a murder that takes place in a remote country town cut off from the outside; Yadokari onna (Parasite Houseguest), portraying a strange woman who moves in, becomes a parasite, and begins tearing the family apart by setting one member against another; and the young adult mystery series Dorīmudasuto monsutāzu (Dreamdust Monsters), in which a teenager has the ability to visit other people’s dreams.