Usata Nonohara is the pen name of the Japanese author of The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life, a warm, slow-life fantasy light novel. Like most light-novel writers, the author keeps no public biography.
The series follows Mariela, a young alchemist who escapes the monster-driven destruction of her homeland by placing herself in suspended animation - and wakes some two hundred years later to discover that she is now the only alchemist left alive. Rather than seek fame or fortune with her rare and valuable skills, she wants only to reclaim a modest, peaceful life, quietly rebuilding her trade in a frontier city - a gentle story of craft, community and starting over.
Illustrated by the artist known as ox, published in Japan by Kadokawa and in English by Yen Press, and adapted into a manga, it is Usata Nonohara's defining work.
