Natsuo Kirino (born 1951) is a Japanese novelist from Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. She won the Edogawa Rampo Prize for "Kao ni Furikakaru Ame" in 1993, followed by the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for "OUT" in 1998 and the Naoki Prize for "Yawarakana Hoho" in 1999. Her later works, including "Grotesque," "Tokyo Island," "Nanika Aru," and "Tsubame wa Modotte Konai," have received numerous major literary awards. She was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2015 and the Japan Art Academy Prize in 2024, and has served as president of the Japan P.E.N. Club since 2021. Her best-known novel, "OUT," follows a group of women working the night shift at a boxed-lunch factory whose involvement in a murder draws them into an increasingly dangerous criminal world. Through their lives, Kirino depicts the pressures of poverty, work, family, and gender in contemporary Japan; the English translation became the first work by a Japanese author to be nominated for the Edgar Award.