Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami dies aged 74
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Japanese author Ryu Murakami’s edgy works featured sex and violence and were translated globally.
PHOTO: AFP
- Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami died on Oct 17 aged 74, his publisher Gentosha said. He was known for bold stories about sex, violence and troubled youth.
- His debut, Almost Transparent Blue, won a major Japanese literary award in 1976. Other well-known books include Coin Locker Babies, In The Miso Soup and Audition.
- Many of his novels were made into films, including some he directed himself. Gentosha said it was “deeply and unbearably saddened” by his “premature death”.
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TOKYO – Japanese author Ryu Murakami, whose edgy works heavily featured sex and violence and were translated globally, died on Oct 17, his publisher said. He was 74.
“We are deeply and unbearably saddened to learn of the premature death of Ryu Murakami, who spent his career continuously releasing shocking works meant for a younger audience,” publisher Gentosha said in a statement on Oct 23.
“We pray for the peace of Murakami, who raced his way through life as the front runner of an era.”
A native of Nagasaki prefecture, Murakami was given a private family funeral.
Among his best-known works is his 1976 debut Almost Transparent Blue, written while he was a student at Musashino Art University. The best-selling novel depicted the depravity of youth steeped in drugs and sex and won him the Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards that year.
He went on to write a string of popular works. His 1980 novel Coin Locker Babies featured children abandoned in baggage lockers and their subsequent survival, while In The Miso Soup (1997) portrayed a tourist’s plunge into Tokyo’s red-light district.
Several of Murakami’s novels have been adapted into films, with some, like Almost Transparent Blue (1979) and Raffles Hotel (1989), directed by himself. AFP