Lian Hearn is a successful Australian author, well-known for her fiction with Asian themes. Hearn attended Oxford University, where she studied modern languages, which would later provide inspiration for her writing. Before becoming a full-time author, Hearn worked as a film critic and an art director.
Hearn's Tales of the Otori series, set in an imagined feudal Japan, has garnered international acclaim. The series, which includes five volumes: Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, Brilliance of the Moon, The Harsh Cry of the Heron, and Heaven's Net Is Wide, has sold more than four million copies worldwide and has been translated into nearly forty languages. The series was followed by two standalone novels, Blossoms and Shadows and The Storyteller and His Three Daughters, also set in Japan. Hearn's forthcoming series, The Tale of Shikanoko, will be published in four volumes in 2016. The series includes Emperor of Eight Islands, Autumn Princess, Dragon Child, Lord of the Darkwood, and The Tengu's Game of Go. Hearn has made multiple trips to Japan and has studied the language and culture extensively. Her background in Modern Languages and her familiarity with Japan have greatly informed her writing and made her work more authentic.