Her father's job made him transfer locations throughout Hyogo prefecture regularly, so Saegusa moved often.
She met Koichi Saegusa (his penname was Tatsuya Morikawa [ja]) while studying at the university.
Her book Onidomo no Yoru wa Fukai (鬼どもの夜は深い) won the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature in 1983.
Saegusa's style is dark, with unreliable narrators who hallucinate and are obsessed with fate and death.
[1] Frequent themes include Japan's defeat in World War II, men's view of womanhood, and the collapse of social institutions like villages and families.