Atsuko Asano

Atsuko Asano (Japanese: あさの あつこ, Hepburn: Asano Atsuko, born 1954 in Okayama Prefecture) is a Japanese writer. She wrote the children's novel series Telepathy Shōjo Ran and the manga series The Manzai Comics. She started writing children's novels when she was in college. She graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University with the Bachelor of Letters degree. After that, she worked as a temporary teacher of the elementary school in Okayama for two years. She published Hotarukan monogatari as her first novel in 1991. She is married to a dentist and they have two sons and a daughter.

Asano received the Noma Prize for Juvenile Literature in 1997 for the book series Battery, which has been adapted into a film. The same series won the Shogakukan Children's Publication Culture Award in 2005. Her work frequently appears in literary magazines and she has also been featured in the Mainichi Shimbun.She likes reading mystery novels. One of her favorite mystery novels is Cat of Many Tails, written by Ellery Queen.

She is a supporter of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP).