Koushun Takami

Real name: Takami Hiroharu Takami Koushun was born in 1969 in Amagasaki near Osaka and grew up in Kagawa Prefecture of Shikoku where he currently resides. After graduating from Osaka University with a degree in literature he dropped out of Nihon Universitys liberal arts correspondence program. From 1991 to 1996 he worked for the prefectural news company Shikoku Shimbun reporting on various fields including politics police reports and economics. Although he has an English teaching certificate he has yet to visit the United States. Battle Royale completed after Takami left the news company was rejected in the final round of a literary competition sponsored by a major publisher due to the critical controversy it provoked among jury members. With its publication in Japan in 1999 though Battle Royale received widespread support particularly from young readers and became a bestseller. In 2000 Battle Royale was serialized as a comic and made into a feature film. Source: Simon Schuster