Shinji Ishii (born 1966) is a Japanese novelist from Osaka. After graduating from Kyoto University, where he studied French literature, he made his literary debut in 1994 with "Amusuterudamu no Inu." His fiction introduces fairy-tale events into recognizable towns and depicts the loneliness and loss experienced by unconventional characters through prose marked by humor and musical rhythm. He received the Oda Sakunosuke Prize for "Aru Ichinichi" and the Kawai Hayao Story Prize for "Akugoe." His representative novel, "Mugifumi Kūtsē," won the Tsubota Joji Literary Prize and follows an unusually large boy who lives with a music-obsessed grandfather and a father fascinated by prime numbers, senses the mysterious footsteps of Kūtsē, and pursues a life in music amid tragedy and unexpected encounters in a port town.