Nishi Kanako is a Japanese novelist born in Tehran, Iran, where her father was stationed on an overseas assignment, but returned to Japan at the age of two when the Iranian Revolution occurred. After that, she spent her first to fourth grade of elementary school in Cairo, Egypt, and then grew up in Komyodai, Izumi, Osaka, Japan, upon her return to Japan. She attended Komyodai Junior High School, Osaka Prefectural Senyo Senior High School, and graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kansai University.

After graduating from university, she chose not to pursue employment and continued working as a part-time writer for "Pia" magazine, conducting store interviews. Later on, she opened a café in Tamatsukuri, Osaka, Japan, in collaboration with a friend. Around the age of 25, she began writing short stories and embarked on a journey to Tokyo alone with her confident works to become a writer. Through an introduction from an acquaintance, she met an editor from Shogakukan and made her debut with "Aoi" (あおい) in 2004. Her work "Sakura" (さくら), published in the following year (2005), became a bestseller with sales exceeding 200,000 copies. She went on to receive the Oda Sakunosuke Prize for "Tsutenkaku" (通天閣) in 2007, the Kawai Hayao Story Award for "Fukuwarai" (ふくわらい) in 2013, and the Naoki Prize for her major work "Saraba!" (サラバ!) commemorating her 10th year as a writer in 2015.

She got married in 2012 and had her first child in 2017. In December 2019, she moved with her family to Vancouver, Canada, for a two-year language study program. She returned to Japan at the end of 2022.

(Source: Japanese = Wikipedia || Translation = kisskh) Edit Biography