Fujino was born in Kyoto in 1980 and lived there through her school years, eventually completing a master's degree at Kyoto's Doshisha University with a thesis on the photographer Ihei Kimura.
[1][2] Though she had originally planned to become a museum curator, after graduating Fujino worked a part-time job at a publishing company to support her writing.
[3][4] In 2006 Fujino made her literary debut with the story Iyashii tori, which won the 103rd Bungakukai Prize and was later published in a book of the same title.
[5] Her short novel Tsume to me (Nails and Eyes), about a young girl observing the behavior of her father's lover, was published in 2013.
[7] In 2017 the Japan Foundation sponsored Fujino's residency in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.