Aki Shimazaki was born in Japan, currently lives in Montreal and writes in French. Burden of Secrets is a series of five novels (Tsubaki, Hamaguri, Tsubame, Wasurenagusa and Hotaru) published in Canada from 1999 to 2004. All of them are built around one story, which every time told from the perspective of a new character. The action begins to unfold in Japan in the 1920s. and affects the lives of four generations. The destinies of the characters are surprisingly intertwined, reflected in each other, like rhyming lines, and from one novel to another, the reader discovers new, unexpected and sometimes tragic details of the history of the main characters. In 2005, Aki Shimazaki was awarded the Governor of Canada Literary Award.