(Update) Popular Japanese Novelist Keigo Higashino Dies at 68

(The fourth paragraph should have read, “…a work in his Detective Galileo series…”, instead of as sent. A substitute story follows.) Popular Japanese Novelist Keigo Higashino Dies at 68 Tokyo, July 27 (Jiji Press)–Popular Japanese author Keigo Higashino, known for his mystery novels, died of colorectal cancer in the early hours of Thursday. He was 68. Higashino, a native of the western prefecture of Osaka, published his first novel, “Hokago” (After-School Hours) in 1985, while working as an engineer after graduating from Osaka Prefecture University, a predecessor of Osaka Metropolitan University. The book won the Edogawa Ranpo Prize that year. In 1999, he won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for “Himitsu,” also published in English under the title “Naoko.” His “Yogisha X no Kenshin” (The Devotion of Suspect X), a work in his Detective Galileo series featuring a genius physicist, won the Naoki Prize in 2006. Higashino became a best-selling author with a number of his mystery novels that combined gripping character-driven drama and brilliant mystery-solving. He established himself as a popular novelist whose works were adapted into movies and dramas, including the Detective Galileo series. He won the Eiji Yoshikawa literary award for “Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki” (The Final Curtain). In 2023, he reached the milestone of having published 100 works, with cumulative sales exceeding 100 million copies in Japan. Higashino’s works have been translated into other languages in 41 countries and regions outside of Japan, and have been nominated for a U.S. Edgar Award and the Dagger prize for crime fiction in translation in Britain. In 2023, he received the Medal with Purple Ribbon, a prestigious national honor in Japan, and the Kikuchi Kan Prize. He also served as president of the Mystery Writers of Japan between 2009 and 2013. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]