Ryūzō Saki (1937–2015) was a Japanese novelist and nonfiction writer. Born in northern Korea under Japanese rule and raised in Kitakyushu, he began writing while working at the Yawata Steel Works and later produced numerous books based on criminal cases and courtroom reporting. His representative work, “Fukushū suru wa Ware ni Ari,” reconstructs through extensive research the case of Akira Nishiguchi, who murdered five people while fleeing across Japan, and received the 74th Naoki Prize. Rather than reducing the offender to a simple figure of evil, the book traces his background, crimes, flight, and arrest to portray both the criminal and the society surrounding him.
