A Japanese writer and translator, Akira Mizubayashi was born in 1951. He first visited France in 1973 for pedagogical training in Montpellier, where he became certified to teach French as a second language. Since 1983, Mizubayashi has taught French in Tokyo, where he currently is professor emeritus at Sophia University. His work has been critically acclaimed in France; in 2020, Fractured Soul won the Prix des libraires among other awards. Mizubayashi resides in Tokyo and writes in French.