Caroline S. Hau was born in Manila, Philippines and educated at the University of the Philippines-Diliman and Cornell University. Eight of her books--among them Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation 1946-1980, Intsik: An Anthology of Chinese Filipino Writing, Interpreting Rizal, Recuerdos de Patay and Other Stories, and Tiempo Muerto: A Novel--received Philippine National Book Awards. She is a recipient of the Grant Goodman Prize in Historical Studies from the Philippine Studies Group of the Association of Asian Studies (U.S.A.) and the Gawad Balagtas lifetime achievement award from the Writers’ Union of the Philippines. She lives in Kyoto, Japan with her spouse and daughter.