Ryu Murakami, the renowned Japanese author behind works such as Audition, has died. He was 74.

Murakami’s passing was first announced by his publisher, Gentosha, on its website as well as on its X/Twitter account. According to the publisher (as translated by the Guardian), Murakami died on October 17 at his home. According to Deadline, Murakami had a private funeral.

Lauded as one of Japan’s greatest cult writers, Murakami’s first book, Almost Transparent Blue, written while he was still a high school student, won the Gunzo Prize for new writers and the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award, according to Deadline. In his lifetime, Murakami wrote over 40 novels that depict society’s darker underbelly. All of them were teeming with themes surrounding loneliness, desire, and obsession. Key among them were In the Miso Soup, Coin Locker Babies, and Piercing.

Arguably his most famous work in the West was his 1997 psychological horror novel Audition, which director Takashi Miike adapted into a film two years later. The story follows an ill-fated romance between a widower who stages a fake casting call to find a new partner, only to meet a woman who, not to give too much away, is way too much for him to handle. Audition is widely regarded as one of the most influential horror films of all time, a feat that wouldn’t have happened had Murakami not put pencil to paper and written the source material.

Source link