Fuyuaki Jikihara 直原 冬明

Fuyuaki Jikihara (1965–) was born in Okayama Prefecture. He worked in the computer industry for a time following college before making the unusual career change of becoming secretary to a member of the Diet. Since resigning that position in 2001, he has paid the bills with part-time jobs while devoting much of his time to writing fiction and submitting manuscripts to new-writer contests. He made his literary debut in 2015 after his manuscript for Jūnigatsu yōka no gen’ei (The Phantom on December 8) won the Japan Mystery Fiction Prize for New Writers.