Vengeance Is Mine
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Summary
The killer, Akira Nishiguchi, became a wanted fugitive of national attention. During his flight, he posed as a university professor, a lawyer, and other identities, swindling his way along and killing again... All of Japan fell into fear.
Ryuzo Saki retraced Nishiguchi's escape route, transforming this cunning and cold-blooded intelligent criminal into the literary character Iwa Enokizu and recreating his chilling trail of crimes.
Ryuzo Saki was born in Korea in 1937. Graduated from Fukuoka Prefectural Yahata Chuo High School. In 1963, "The Rock-Paper-Scissors Pact" won the New Japan Literature Prize. In 1964, he left the Yahata Steel Works and began writing for a living. In 1976, "Vengeance Is Mine" won the 74th Naoki Prize. In 1991, "Identity Book" won the 2nd Ito Sei Literature Prize. His works include "Wind in the Courtroom," "Diary of an Eight-Year-Old in Showa 20," "Crossing the Mountains: Kakuei Tanaka," and "The Murderers I Met." In 2006 he became director of the Kitakyushu City Literature Museum, and from 2012 its honorary director. He died on October 31, 2015.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who like Japanese crime reportage and want to read Naoki Prize works
- Readers interested in Showa-era social history and the underside of Japan's postwar economic boom
- Writing enthusiasts studying criminal psychology and identity disguise
- Social science readers who want to understand loopholes in social trust through an individual case
Not a good fit for
- Readers with low tolerance for detailed depictions of violent crime
- Mystery readers expecting fast-paced detective plotting
- Readers who want only light entertainment
Reading tips
- Read the case background at the opening first, then read in segments following the killer's escape route, noting the tension created by geographical movement.
- Note each profession the killer disguises himself as, and observe how social trust is exploited.
- After finishing, compare with social news from the Showa economic boom to understand the era's mood behind the case.
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 1 田
- 2 岭
- 3 车
- 4 血
- 5 貌
- 6 火
- 7 声
- 8 刃
- 9 汗
- 10 泞
- 11 系
- 12 蠢
- 13 嗤
- 14 足
- 15 海
- 16 帜
- 17 土
- 18 舌
- 19 影
- 20 爪
- 21 缆
- 22 眼
- 23 街
- 24 雨
- 25 旅
- 26 檄
- 27 钉
- 28 风
- 29 锁
- 30 官
- 31 朝
- 32 歌
- 33 槛
- 34 春
- 35 须
- 36 瘤
- 37 告
- 38 岛
- 39 夜
- 40 刑
- 后记
- 文库版后记
- 解说
FAQ
Is this a fictional novel or a record of a real case?
I haven't read other works by Ryuzo Saki—can I read this directly?
Is there a lot of violence in the book? What preparation is needed before reading?
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About the author
Saki Ryuzo was a Japanese novelist and writer of documentary literature who lived from 1937 to 2015. His work spanned both fictional narrative and investigation of real events, giving him a distinctive place between popular fiction and documentary writing. In 1976 he won the Naoki Prize for Vengeance Is Mine, his most widely known representative work, which has also been translated into Chinese and is often classified under foreign literature. The Chinese book database currently holds only one of his works, and publicly available information about his early life, his full body of work, and his writing career is limited, making a more detailed biography difficult to provide. Based on confirmed information, he drew on criminal cases and real events, treating realistic subjects with novelistic technique and moving between documentary and fiction; this approach makes him a notable name in postwar Japanese documentary and crime writing.
Lin Xiaoxuan is a Chinese-language author about whom limited public information is available. The confirmed details center on a single work carried by a Chinese book site, Revenge Is Mine (Fuchou zai wo). The book is classified under foreign literature, a category that suggests a subject connected to translated or overseas literary writing, while the title itself carries a strong tension of conflict and readily evokes plotlines and character entanglements built around revenge. As for the available material, there are no reliable records of Lin Xiaoxuan's nationality, life, chronology of works, or other publications, making a full account of the author's writing career difficult. For readers who wish to learn about this author, the most direct entry point is reading Revenge Is Mine and forming their own impression of the narrative approach, character portrayal, and thematic handling presented in the text. Since the available material remains limited, any introduction to Lin Xiaoxuan can only stay at the level of the work, and more public information is awaited to fill in the author's creative profile.
