Keigo Higashino, a best-selling author of mystery novels who published more than 100 books in a prolific career, many of which inspired screen adaptations in his native Japan and beyond, died on Thursday. He was 68.
His longtime publisher in Japan, Kodansha, said in a statement on Monday that the cause was colorectal cancer.
Mr. Higashino was the first Japanese author to be nominated for an Edgar Award in the United States and a Dagger Award in Britain, two of the most prestigious prizes in mystery and crime writing.
His English-language breakthrough was a translation of his 2005 novel, “The Devotion of Suspect X.” Time magazine named it one of the 100 best mystery and thriller books of all time, and it was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2012. The novel has been adapted into films in Japan, China, South Korea and India.
Mr. Higashino wrote 106 books that have sold about 109 million copies in Japan, in addition to several co-written works. His books have been published in 41 countries and territories, according to Kodansha, and translated into several languages including English, Chinese, Korean and French.
His characters were often regular people such as schoolteachers, young children and pawnbrokers, who perpetrated or suffered acts of violence hidden by their mundane lives. His 2009 novel, “Newcomer,” which revolved around the murder of a middle-aged woman who lived alone in Tokyo and seemed to have no enemies, was nominated for a Dagger Award in 2019.
“I always have a defense attorney, a prosecutor and a judge within me, and perhaps even a defendant,” Mr. Higashino said about his detached writing style, which never allowed any single character to dominate the narrative, in a 2006 interview with the Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper. “This mind-set prevents me from writing solely based on one side’s perspective.”
One of the earliest international film adaptations of his works was “The Secret,” a 2007 English-language French production starring David Duchovny. It was a remake of a 1999 Japanese movie based on Mr. Higashino’s novel of the same name.
His final novel, “Eternal Memory,” is set to be published on Aug. 5 by the Tokyo-based publishing house Bungeishunju, according to Kodansha’s statement.
Mr. Higashino was born on Feb. 4, 1958, in Osaka, Japan. His family was not wealthy and he grew up wearing clothes handed down from his two older sisters, according to a biography provided by the publisher Vertical Inc..
He disliked books as a child, he said in 2006 when he won Japan’s Naoki Prize, an award for popular fiction.
“What I always think about is wanting to write novels that even my book-hating self from back then would enjoy reading,” Mr. Higashino said at the time.
He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Osaka Prefecture University, which is now Osaka Metropolitan University. Soon afterward, he began working for Denso, a Japanese manufacturer of automotive parts, but continued writing in the evenings and on weekends, he told The Wall Street Journal in 2011.
He decided to become a full-time writer in 1985 when his debut novel, “After School,” won the Edogawa Rampo Prize, an award for unpublished mystery novels presented by the Mystery Writers of Japan. The novel, about a string of violent attacks at a girls’ high school, was inspired by his experiences at university and his former wife’s work as a teacher.
Mr. Higashino and his wife divorced in 1997. Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
In 2023, the Japanese government awarded Mr. Higashino the Medal with Purple Ribbon, an honor for individuals who have contributed to art and academia.
When he received the medal, he said he still aimed to entertain his readers and to encourage them to read.
“The feeling is similar to climbing a mountain,” he said. “I believe that if I just keep moving forward, I will eventually reach the top.”
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