Edogawa Rampo
(1894–1965), Japan's first modern mystery writer. Edogawa Rampo (whose real name was Hirai Taro) graduated from Waseda University in 1916. He worked alternately as a clerk, accountant, and editor, but in 1923 found himself unemployed. An avid reader of foreign mystery stories, he penned Nisen doka (The Two-Sen Copper Coin) and submitted it to the only mystery magazine in Japan, Shin seinen, which published translations of Western mysteries. Edogawa's short mystery was accepted, and it became the first original Japanese mystery story to be published. He chose as his pen name Edogawa Rampo, after the Japanese pronunciation of Edgar Allen Poe.
With the subsequent publication of Shinri shiken (The Psychological Test) in 1925 and Yaneura no samposha (The Attic Stroller) in 1925, he became the leading Japanese writer in the mystery genre. Gradually turning to longer mysteries, he published Inju (Dark Beasts, 1928), Kumootoko (Spider Man, 1930), and Ogon kamen (Golden Mask, 1931), which found a large audience. As founder of the Japan Mystery Writers' Club and the Edogawa Rampo Prize, he encouraged young writers and wrote critical essays of works in the mystery genre.
Further Reading
Edogawa Rampo. (1956) Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Trans. by James B. Harris. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
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