Ryu Murakami, Cult Japanese Novelist and Film-Maker, Dies at 74

Ryu Murakami, the cult Japanese author and film-maker whose subversive, blackly comic novels found millions of readers, has died aged 74. His Japanese publisher Gentosha confirmed he died on 17 October at home.

Described as the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature, Murakami folded violence, explicit drug use and sex into stories that offered a sharp-eyed critique of Japanese and American culture.

"It has been a huge privilege to bring many of Ryu Murakami's strange, original and cinematic novels to an English-speaking audience," said Adam Freudenheim, publisher and managing director at Pushkin Press. Pushkin Press, along with Bloomsbury, publishes Murakami's works in translation in the UK.

How did a house-arrested drummer become a literary star?

Murakami was born in Sasebo, Nagasaki prefecture, in 1952, the son of two teachers. He played drums in a rock band during high school and was placed under three months of house arrest after joining a rooftop protest.

He published his first novel, Almost Transparent Blue, in 1976, while still a student. Narrated by a character called Ryū, the book depicts the hedonistic lifestyle of a group of disillusioned, nihilistic young people. It won the Gunzo prize for new writers and the Akutagawa prize, Japan's most prestigious literary award — a double recognition for a debut written before graduation.

Was he related to Haruki Murakami?

No. Ryu Murakami was not related to his better-known namesake, Haruki. The journalist David Pilling drew the sharpest contrast in 2013, writing that Ryu Murakami's books are "edgier and angrier".

"If Haruki is the Beatles of Japanese literature, Ryu is its Rolling Stones," Pilling wrote.

The distinction matters for readers: Ryu's catalogue runs darker, more violent and more satirical than Haruki's melancholic realism.

What did he write?

Murakami wrote more than 40 novels and short story collections, including:

• Almost Transparent Blue (1976)
• Coin Locker Babies
• In the Miso Soup
• Audition
• Piercing
• Popular Hits of the Showa Era

Most of his books have not yet been translated into English.

His third novel, Coin Locker Babies, about children abandoned in storage lockers, won the Noma literary new face prize. Russell Thomas, writing in the Guardian in 2020, called it "a surreal coming-of-age horror story that runs wildly through the heights of love and superstardom, and the lows of insanity and murder". He selected it as one of the best books set in Japan.

"Murakami's stories never shy away from shining a light on the darkest corners of society," Thomas added.

Which of his works reached the screen?

Many of Murakami's works have been adapted for film, either by himself or other film-makers. The best-known is Audition, a 1999 feature directed by Takashi Miike, which follows a widower holding fake movie auditions to find a new girlfriend.

Irvine Welsh, writing about the novel in the Guardian in 2009, described its prose as "elegiac and affecting, but it has the sharp, visceral feel of the butcher's knife or surgeon's scalpel".

"All at Pushkin Press are saddened to hear of his death and extend our sympathies to his many readers around the world," said Freudenheim.

With most of his more than 40 books still untranslated, Murakami's death leaves English-language publishers a substantial backlist — and readers a waiting archive.