Keigo Higashino

By 2018 Higashino had published 66 novels, 20 short story collections, and one picture book. In all, there were 715 works in 8 languages by Higashino worldwide in 2020, excluding 20 which were about him.

Higashino admitted in 2015 that his content and style had changed from his earlier writings, in which he treated motivation as the most important element. In a 2011 interview he stated that he wants his "readers to be continually surprised by my ideas.”

Higashino received the Eiji Yoshikawa Literary Prize in 2014 for Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki (祈りの幕が下りる時 ) , When the Curtain of Prayer Descends), the 10th book to feature Detective Kyoichiro Kaga. He thought that the book was the end of the Kaga series, as he had done what he wanted to do with it.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, Higashino donated the royalties of 100,000 copies of the reprint of Kirin no Tsubasa (麒麟の翼, The Wings of the Kirin), the sequel to Newcomer, to relief efforts in affected areas.

Higashino was elected president of the Mystery Writers of Japan in 2009, and served until 2013. From 2002 to 2007 he served on various MWJ selection committees, and fulfilled a similar role for the Edogawa Rampo Award from 2008 to 2013. In 2014 he became a selection member for the Naoki Prize.

In 2006 Higashino won the 134th Naoki Prize for Yōgisha Ekkusu no Kenshin (容疑者Xの献身, The Devotion of Suspect X), an award for which he'd been nominated five times previously. Suspect X also won the 6th Honkaku Mystery Award and was ranked the number-one novel by Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 2006 and 2006 Honkaku Mystery Best 10, annual mystery fiction guide books published in Japan. The English edition of Suspect X, translated by Alexander O. Smith, was nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Barry Award for Best First Novel.

In 1998 Higashino published Himitsu (秘密, Secret), which was converted into a feature film and won the 52nd Mystery Writers of Japan Award for feature films in 1999. Secret was later translated into English by Kerim Yasar and published as Naoko in 2004, with a limited print run. Higashino was inspired to write the story by reading a book in which a young child possessed the memories of someone who died nearby. He tried writing a short story featuring the implications of what would happen in such an instance, "but the ideas didn’t fully materialize. Finally I presented it as a novel and it got picked up." A 1999 Japanese film, Himitsu, was based on the book, as was a 2007 English-language French remake,The Secret, starring David Duchovny.

In 1981 he began working as an engineer at Nippon Denso Co. (presently DENSO), and married a high school teacher. He continued to write in the evenings and on weekends, submitting unpublished mystery novels for consideration for the annual Edogawa Rampo Prize in 1983. In 1984 his submission, which drew on his wife's occupation, reached the final round. In 1985, at the age of 27, he won the Rampo Prize for best unpublished mystery for Hōkago (放課後, After School), drawing on experiences of the archery club at his former university. He resigned from DENSO in 1986 to start a career in Tokyo as a full-time writer.

Keigo Higashino (Japanese: 東野 圭吾 , Hepburn: Higashino Keigo, born February 4, 1958) is a Japanese author chiefly known for his mystery novels. He served as the 13th President of Mystery Writers of Japan from 2009 to 2013. Higashino has won major Japanese awards for his books, almost twenty of which have been turned into films and TV series.