She received her MA in Chinese and Japanese from the University of Edinburgh, and her Ph.D. in Modern Japanese Literature from SOAS, University of London. Her dissertation was on the use of history and fantasy in the postwar works of the author Ishikawa Jun. Her research focuses on enclosures and circular journeys in the literature and film of the 1950s and 1960s, on the construction (and destruction) of fantastic or illusory worlds, and on the play of forms in modern Japanese fiction.