Award-winning novelist Ryuzo Saki has died of throat cancer at a hospital in Kitakyushu, his family said Sunday. He was 78.
The writer, whose real name was Ryozo Kosaki, was known for his nonfiction novels based on crimes and trials. He won the prestigious Naoki Prize in 1976 for his work "Vengeance is Mine," which was based on actual serial murders.
Saki, who died Saturday, was born on the Korean Peninsula and joined the predecessor of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. after high school in Kitakyushu.
He began writing novels and received a prize in 1963 for his work featuring a steel company. He quit the steel company in 1964 to focus on writing.
Saki observed court proceedings for major cases, including the slayings of four girls in 1988 and 1989 in Tokyo and Saitama, and the 1995 sarin attack on the capital's subway system by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, and wrote about them.
