Hirano was born in 1975 in Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture, and grew up in Northern Kyushu. He graduated from Kyoto University law school. In 1999, he won the 120th Akutagawa Prize for his first work, Nisshoku, which he had submitted to Shincho Magazine. Later, he announced numerous works that have been translated into many languages to be read in countries all over the world. In 2004, he lived for a year in Paris as a cultural ambassador for Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. From 2008, he has been a member of the Mishima Yukio Prize selection committee. A connoisseur of art and music, he has written critiques on a wide range of genres. From 2008 to 2017, he was a judge of the Higashikawa Award for Photography, and from 2009 to 2016 was a columnist in charge of the Asahi Shimbun Art Review. In 2014, as a guest curator at the National Museum of Western Art, he opened an exhibit titled "Screams outside of everyday life, famous western art pieces chosen by Hirano Keiichiro." In the same year, he was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, chevalier rank. In 2016 he participated in a Martha Argerich x Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra concert entitled "Night of Peace" to do a recitation alongside Annie Dutoit. Hirano's novels include Funeral, Ripples the Dripping Clocks Make, Collapse (Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts), Dawn (Prix Deux Magots Bunkamura award), The Only Form of Love, Fill in the Blanks, The Invisible Labyrinth ,and Matinee (200,000 copy bestseller, recipient of the Junichi Watanabe Literature Award). His essays and short stories include "What am I? From 'Individual' to 'Dividual', "Where 'Vitality' Lies~the Everchanging World and Dividualism", and "The Thinking Reed." In September 2018, he published his latest full-length novel, A MAN.

[Awards]
• 120th Akutagawa Prize for Nisshoku
(1998)
• 59th Education, Science and Technology
Ministers Art Encouragement Prize for
New Writers for Kekkai (2008)
• 19th Prix Deux Magots Bunkamura for
Dawn (2009)"