Ishihara Shintaro was a Japanese politician and writer who was Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of right-leaning Japan Restoration Party, Ishihara is one of the most prominent conservative right-wing politicians in modern Japanese politics. His arts career included a prize-winning novel, best-sellers and work also in theater, film and journalism.

Ishihara was born in Suma-ku, Kobe. His father Kiyoshi was an employee, later a general manager, of a shipping company. Shintaro grew up in Zushi, Kanagawa. In 1952, he entered Hitotsubashi University, and he graduated in 1956. Just two months before graduation, Ishihara won the Akutagawa Prize (Japan's most prestigious literary prize) for the novel Season of the Sun.

Ishihara was married to Ishihara Noriko and had four sons. Members of the House of Representatives Ishihara Nobuteru and Ishihara Hirotaka are his eldest and third sons; actor and weatherman Ishihara Yoshizumi is his second son. His youngest son, Ishihara Nobuhiro, is a painter. Actor Ishihara Yujiro was his younger brother.

In January 2022, Ishihawa has diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. However, he died at his home in Tokyo on 1 February 2022, at the age of 89.

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