TOKYO — Novelist Junichi Watanabe, whose romantic tales included the huge best-seller “Shitsurakuen” — “A Lost Paradise” in English — died after a long battle with prostate cancer at his Tokyo home on April 30. He was 80.
Watanabe’s wife, Toshiko, attended a funeral with close relatives. A memorial service will be held at a later date.
The novelist won the prestigious Naoki Prize for “Hikari to Kage” (Light and shadow) in 1970. Other works included “Hitohira no Yuki” (One flake of snow) and “Shinigesho” (Funeral cosmetics), which won an award sponsored by Shinchosha Publishing Co. in 1965.
Watanabe was born in Hokkaido and graduated from Sapporo Medical University. He was working as an orthopedic surgeon when he released several novels through a literary magazine.
Using his medical experience, he pioneered a genre of novels dealing with the field. One was “Toki Rakujitsu” (The setting sun far away), a biography about famous bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi, for which he received the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize in 1980.
But later in the 1980s he began focusing on romantic novels, including “Sakura no Ki no Shitade” (Under a cherry blossom tree), which were called a new sensual literature.
“Shitsurakuen,” published in 1997, saw a massive public response thanks to its fierce portrayal of a male-female relationship. The two-volume novel sold 2.6 million copies and was adapted into a successful movie and TV drama. The word “Shitsurakuen,” meaning adultery by a middle-aged couple, became one of the buzzwords that year.
In addition to his novels, Watanabe wrote many essays. Among them, “Donkanryoku” (The power of insensitivity) became a million-seller.