The Asahi, among various other places I’m sure, reports that novelist, essayist, and translator Maruya Saiichi passed away on October 13th from heart failure. He was 87.

Born Nemura Saiichi, Maruya began his writing career in 1960 with エホバの顔を避けて (“Avoid the Face of Jehovah”) and was still publishing novels up until late last year with 持ち重りする薔薇の花  (“The Rose That Weighs Heavily On the Heart”). He is perhaps most known for his satirical novel Singular Rebellion, translated by Dennis Keene, for which he won the Tanizaki Prize. He also co-translated James Joyce’s Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man into the Japanese.

He won numerous awards besides the Tanizaki, including the Akutagawa, the Kawabata, the Asahi, etc., but it culminated with Maruya receiving the Order of Culture from the Japanese government in 2011. Recycled from said previous article, but pithy nonetheless, Maruya is quoted as saying, regarding the Order of Culture: “The modern literature I read when I was a youth was not very interesting and a little strange. I believe persisting in that feeling has led me to the Order of Culture.”

Rain in the Wind, Grass for My Pillow, and A Mature Woman are also available in English, all translated by Dennis Keene.