Hikaru Okuizumi (born 1956) is a Japanese novelist from Yamagata Prefecture. After completing a master's degree at International Christian University, he made his literary debut in 1986 with "Chi no Tori Ten no Gyogun." He received the Noma Literary New Face Prize for "Novalis no Inyo" and won the Akutagawa Prize in 1994 for "Ishi no Raireki." His later works have received major honors including the Noma Literary Prize for "Jingi: Gunkan Kashihara Satsujin Jiken," the Tanizaki Prize for "Tokyo Jojoden," and both the Shibata Renzaburo Prize and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for "Yuki no Kizahashi." Blending history, mystery, music, and experiments with narrative form, Okuizumi frequently explores the unstable relationship between memory and storytelling. "Ishi no Raireki" follows a man whose encounter with a mysterious stone in the Philippines during World War II continues to shape his postwar life, linking memories of the battlefield with tragedy within his own family.