Ryunosuke Murakami passed away at his home on October 17. The farewell ceremony was held in a close family circle, and further details have not been made public.

«Please respect their privacy.» With this request, the writer’s relatives addressed the public through the publishing house. The family has asked that no flowers, monetary donations, or condolences be sent, and has requested that media representatives refrain from contacting his loved ones for interviews.

Murakami was born on February 19, 1952, in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, into an artistic family. His youth was anything but sheltered: he played drums in a rock band, later played rugby, and wrote for his school newspaper.

In 1976, his debut novel was published—Almost Transparent Blue (sometimes referenced in early translations as All the Colors of Blue). The book, depicting the gritty everyday lives of marginalized teenagers, caused a sensation: its circulation exceeded one million copies, and the novice author was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. In doing so, a new voice emerged in Japanese literature—one that spoke about youth not from a position of authority, but from within their own world, without comforting morals or embellishment.

Over his lifetime, Murakami wrote more than forty books and became the recipient of numerous literary awards.

«A radical voice of postwar Japanese literature» — this is how literary critics have characterized him.

Among his most famous works are Coin Locker Babies, 69, In the Miso Soup, Fatherland, and From the Peninsula, Advance! A distinct thematic thread in his bibliography is the «Monologues on Pleasure, Apathy, and Death» trilogy, comprising Ecstasy, Melancholy, and Thanatos.

The writer was not limited to the printed page: he also tried his hand at film directing, shooting several films, including adaptations of his own works. For him, literature and the screen were simply two different ways of telling the same story—about an individual who feels suffocated in a society that demands their silence.

Ryu Murakami is often confused with another famous Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, author of A Wild Sheep Chase, Norwegian Wood, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. However, the namesakes belong to entirely different literary worlds: if Haruki Murakami is known for calm, almost hypnotic prose featuring parallel realities, Ryu Murakami is the sharp, noisy, and visceral voice of a generation that classical Japanese literature had long refused to hear.

Ryu Murakami was 74. He leaves behind more than forty novels, several films, and a literary debut after which Japanese prose could never be the same.