Kasumi Asakura (1960–) is a Japanese novelist based in Hokkaido. Her fiction portrays the everyday lives of ordinary people with warmth, humor, and a keen eye for the subtleties of human relationships. She made her literary debut after winning the Kodansha Novel Prize for New Writers in 2004 for "Kimo, Yakeru" and later received the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers for "Tamura wa Mada ka" in 2009. In 2026, she won the 175th Naoki Prize for "Kengwai". Set in the Edo period, the novel follows women pushed to the margins of society as they build a community of mutual support, exploring themes of exclusion, dignity, solidarity, and renewal.
