Ryo HanmuraHanmura Ryō (pseudonym of Kiyono Heitarō, 1933-2002), born in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, spent thirty years moving from job to job, including manning reception desks at love hotels and bartending in cabarets. He debuted as an author in 1962, but was litle heard-from until 1971, when his Seiun Award-winning novel Ishi no Ketsumyaku (Veins of Stone) reintroduced him as a pioneer in the denki shōsetsu subgenre of dark, often historically based fantasy. In 1975, he became the first SF author to win the Naoki Prize, with this non-SF novel. Throughout the 1970s, he produced new works at a furious pace, and continued writing SF, fantasy, and historical novels until 2001, earning the Nihon SF Taishō Award in 1988 and the Shibata Renzaburō Prize in 1993. Read More Read Less