Seishu Hase is the pseudonym of the Japanese writer Toshihito Bando, famous for his novels about the Yakuza. He was born in Hokkaido (Japan) in February 1965 and graduated in Literature from Yokohama University. He is the author of more than forty crime and crime novels that address the internal struggles and deceptions of the mafia, and some of them, such as The City of Lost Souls and Sleepless Town, have been adapted for film. With The Boy and the Dog, he managed to win the prestigious Naoki Award.