Naoki Higashida

Naoki Higashida (born 1992 in Kimitsu, Japan) is a Japanese author. He was diagnosed with severe, nonverbal autism at the age of five. He learned to communicate using an alphabet board and began writing poems and short stories at an early age. At 13, he wrote his best-known work, *The Reason I Jump*, which was published in Japan in 2007 and translated into more than 30 languages. Higashida has received several awards for his writing.