Death announced by publisher

Ryu Murakami, the Japanese novelist whose fiction explores sex, drugs, alienation and violence, has died at the age of 74. His publisher, Gentosha, confirmed the death on Friday, 23 October, and described him as an author who spent his career producing shocking works for a younger readership. According to the Kyodo news agency, he died at home and was later buried in a private ceremony. Murakami was born in Nagasaki Prefecture in southwestern Japan, and his books have been translated into many languages, including German and French.

In its statement, Gentosha said:

“We are deeply saddened by the death of Ryu Murakami, who devoted his career to tirelessly publishing provocative works for a younger audience.”

Debut and early success

Murakami wrote his debut novel, Almost Transparent Blue, while attending university. It won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers and the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, one of the best-known literary awards in Japan. The novel follows rebellious young people drifting into drugs and sex near an American military base. It became a bestseller, selling 3.5 million hardcover and paperback copies, and it established the author's reputation for unsettling fiction.

Later novels and television work

Coin Locker Babies, published in 1980, follows two babies abandoned in station lockers as they search for identity among the outcasts of Tokyo's underworld. Raffles Hotel, from 1989, gathers characters in emotional turmoil inside the celebrated colonial-era hotel in Singapore. Miso Soup (1997) traces a tourist wandering through the red-light district of the Japanese capital. Murakami also served for two decades as chief interviewer on TV Tokyo's programme Cambrian Palace, where he questioned prominent figures from the business world. He also worked as a film director and screenwriter.

Tributes and translations

Some of his novels were published in French by Editions Picquier, and his work reached readers well beyond Japan. Gentosha closed its statement with a second tribute that described him as a pioneer of his time.

“We pray for the repose of Murakami's soul, who lived life at full speed, a true pioneer of his time.”