Sokyu Genyu (born 1956) is a Japanese novelist and Zen Buddhist priest of the Rinzai school. Born in Miharu, Fukushima Prefecture, he graduated from Keio University with a degree in Chinese literature before entering the training monastery at Tenryu-ji Temple in Kyoto. He currently serves as the chief priest of Fukujuji Temple while continuing his literary career. His fiction explores themes of life, death, spirituality, and humanity through a distinctly Buddhist perspective. He received the Akutagawa Prize in 2001 for "Chuin no Hana" and the Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize in 2014 for "Hikari no Yama." His best-known work, "Chuin no Hana" ("Flowers of the Intermediate State"), is a collection of interconnected stories that examines grief, impermanence, and the relationship between the living and the dead through the Buddhist concept of the intermediate state between death and rebirth.