Kyoko Nakajima was born in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan to parents who worked as university professors and translators of French literature.
[2][3] In 1996 she quit her job to spend a year in the United States, and upon her return to Japan in 1997 she began a new career as a freelance writer.
Her debut novel Futon, which refers to work of the same name by Katai Tayama,[5] was published in 2003 and immediately nominated for the 2003 Noma Literary New Face Prize, but did not win.
[7] Nakajima followed Futon with two more novels and six short story collections, and in 2009 she received a grant from the University of Iowa Center for Asian and Pacific Studies to support a residency at the International Writing Program.
[21][22] Nakajima bases many of her settings and characters on her own personal experiences, such as caring for a parent with dementia, as in Nagai owakare, or dealing with a youthful sibling, as in Kirihatake no endan.